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newstfionline · 6 years ago

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I Took ‘Adulting Classes’ for Millennials

Andrew Zaleski, CityLab, Oct 29, 2018

On the eve of my wife’s 30th birthday--a milestone I, too, will soon hit--she posed a troubling question: Are we adults yet?

We certainly feel that way: We hold our own jobs, pay our own rent, cover our own bills, drive our own cars. Our credit is in order. But we don’t yet own a house and have no children--two markers commonly associated with fully-fledged adulthood (and two markers that both our sets of parents had reached well before they turned 30). And there are other gaps in our maturity: I don’t buy napkins or know how to golf; up until last year, I didn’t know how to change the oil in my car’s engine. Thankfully, last year we managed to throw a dinner party, our first, without burning the pork roast.

A vague anxiety over these known-unknowns is something of a generational hallmark. A Monday-morning scroll through the social media feed of the average 20-something might turn up a handful of friends sharing memes of dogs--looking bewildered, exasperated, or both--unironically captioned with something like: “Don’t make me adult today.”

Yes, Millennials have killed yet another thing. In this case, it’s something so fundamental that it may have seemed unkillable, but apparently isn’t: knowing how to be an adult.

Younger people need not look far on the internet to find popular condemnation from card-carrying grown-ups about our many shortcomings. We are, we are often told, simpering, self-indulgent, immune-to-difficulty know-nothings, overgrown toddlers who commute on children’s toys and demand cucumber water in our workplaces. But in our own social circles, such constructive criticism can be harder to find. Young urbanites tend to pack themselves into specific neighborhoods, cities, and living situations that have relatively fewer older residents. In such communities, knowledge on how to Seamless a meal to the doorstep is a dime a dozen, but first-hand experience in snaking a drain, cooking a meal for four, or operating a manual transmission comes at more of a premium. (To say nothing of the fact that a third of Americans between 18 and 34 are living with their parents.)

Luckily, the rough road to adulthood can be paved with adulting classes. The Adulting Collective, a startup venture out of Portland, Maine, made a big splash about two years ago after national news outlets reported on its in-person events. In its short lifespan, the Collective has offered up lessons, either guided or via online video, in such varied life skills as bike safety, holiday gift-giving for the cash-strapped, putting together a monthly budget, opening a bottle of wine without a corkscrew, and assembling a weekly nutritional plan. Their target audience: “emerging adults,” the massive 93-million-strong demographic group composed of people in their 20s and early 30s.

There are similarly structured programs across the country. At the Brooklyn Brainery, for example, you can take classes on how to run a good meeting or what Seinfeld teaches us about love. Take an online course with the Society of Grownups, sponsored by the insurance company Mass Mutual, and topics will include budgeting and how to deal with student-loan debt.

The sheer banality of many of these courses is their salient quality. They’re teaching stuff that people neither look forward to nor seem to enjoy, but implicitly recognize as part of being a grown-up: paying bills, setting a budget, calling the car insurance company, looking after your health. The joyless, quotidian chores of post-adolescence.

“Adulting is something nobody prepares you for, but you know it when it happens. It’s the unglorified part of being on your own,” says Rebekah Fitzsimmons, assistant director of the writing and communication program at Georgia Tech who taught a class on adulting in the 21st century in 2016.

In a bygone era, the ordinariness traditionally associated with growing the hell up was something few noticed--in the first half of the 20th century, 20-somethings were too busy trying not to die of the Spanish Flu or fighting Hitler to worry too much about what life skills they were failing to develop. That has now been replaced by public displays of what it means to be a self-sufficient human being, Fitzsimmons says. At the intersection of these two competing truths is the cottage industry of adulting, one nurtured by Instagram hashtags and built around how-to classes for hapless Millennials.

Born in 1989, I am a card-carrying member of the oft-derided demographic. How hapless am I? To find out, I signed up for the two action challenges the Adulting Collective offered last fall: one on nutrition and another focused on monthly budgeting. Via email, I received instructions for each of these week-long courses, which had me tackling a new skill or task each day.

When I hit 30, I intend to complete emerging adulthood fully equipped for whatever comes next.

First lesson: Hydrate! Never would I have thought the amount of water I consumed would be a point of instruction. But it turns out that young adults are notoriously poor judges of this particular basic biological need. The crash course in nutrition from the Adulting Collective that arrived in my inbox last fall was titled “Detox Before You Retox,” and it heavily emphasized hangover avoidance. Billed as a way to prepare yourself “before the next happy hour,” the instructions contained multiple steps broken down over five days. Step one: Get your basics in order, like eating your veggies, exercising, and drinking more water.

So one evening I stood in the harsh glow of my kitchen’s overhead fluorescent lighting--pitcher at the ready, glass on the countertop--applying myself to my first adulting lesson. On my smartphone I made a quick calculation: my weight, divided by 2.2, multiplied by my age, divided by 28.3, divided once more by eight. The answer: eight. More precisely, I needed to drink 7.56 cups of water to hit my proper daily intake.

This was only one of the big takeaways I received. I also learned that a morning drink of lemon water and cayenne pepper mixed with said water can help boost my metabolism, apparently. Like the unnecessarily complex hydration formula above, some of this material had the effect of making a heretofore uncomplicated thing more daunting. It was months later it finally dawned on me that a simple Google search could yield a far simpler answer for the number of glasses of water I ought to drink every day.

How did it come to this? Did previous generations have so much trouble mastering the basics?

“In an ideal world, we would all be followed around by this combination of our grandmother and Merlin who would lovingly teach us how to do each and every thing in the world,” says Kelly Williams Brown, author of the 2013 book Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 535 Easy(ish) Steps. “In the absence of that, it can be nice to have resources.”

Brown’s book seems to be largely responsible for the meteoric rise of the gerund form of the word (which was short-listed by Oxford Dictionaries as the word of the year in 2016). A revised edition of Adulting was published in March. The adulting industry itself is newer. Rachel Weinstein co-founded the Adulting School (now Collective) with Katie Brunelle in fall 2016. (Brunelle has since left the business.)

A professional therapist, Weinstein would sometimes encounter younger clients who spoke about the idiosyncrasies of grown-up life with a feeling of self-conscious shame. Being overwhelmed about how to manage money or clean out their kitchen pantry were things they felt they had to hide. “I just saw a lot of my clients struggle with life, trying to be competent in skills that we’re not necessarily taught. People had this sense of internal embarrassment,” she says.

To Weinstein, this seemed like a golden business opportunity. As a group, 26-year-olds are the single biggest age cohort in the U.S., followed by people who are 25, 27, and 24. Yet unlike previous generations, the young people of today are slower to reach the milestones usually associated with adulthood: living independently, forming their own households, having children, and getting married. “Today’s young people,” as the U.S. Census Bureau reported last year, “look different from prior generations in almost every regard.”

Tempting as it might be to identify the price of avocados as the culprit in this stunted generational progress, there may be other reasons to explain the shift. A research report released in the spring by Freddie Mac cited weak wage growth and the rapid rise of both housing costs and average expenditures as some of the principal reasons. “A popular meme, ‘adulting is hard,’ provides a humorous take on the challenges faced by young adults,” the authors wrote. “Like a lot of good comedy, the phrase has a tinge of cruelty.”

The typical adulting student is someone whose childhood was tech-dependent and activity-rich, the sort of high-achiever kid told to get good grades.

Geography plays a role, too: Millennials tend to choose to live in the centers of high-cost cities, and their earning power hasn’t kept pace with housing costs. Since 2000, the median home price in the U.S. has risen by a quarter, from $210,000 to $270,000, while the per capita real income for young adults has risen by only 1 percent during that same period. Throw those myriad factors together, and you have some of the explanation for why 20-somethings are renting for longer periods of time than they once did, as well as why marriage and fertility rates have dropped. Appropriately, Freddie Mac’s report was titled, “Why Is Adulting Getting Harder?”

But if you go further back, delaying the markers of adulthood does have historical precedent, says Holly Swyers, an anthropology professor at Lake Forest College. She recently completed a project examining adulthood in America from the Civil War to the present day. For much of the period Swyers studied, many Americans over 18 followed roughly the same trajectory as modern Millennials do: They spent their 20s figuring out life and establishing themselves financially. The script didn’t flip until the 1950s and 1960s, when the markers that defined crossing over into the world of adulthood came to mean marrying and having children.

“Marrying when you’re 20, having kids by 21, and being established is a little bit freakish in American history,” she says.

So if those Americans of yore managed to (eventually) attain maturity without the aid of online courses, why can’t Millennials?

Maybe we really are uniquely ignorant. That’s the thesis that GOP senator and Gen Xer Ben Sasse presents in his book The Vanishing American Adult. He writes that younger Americans have willfully embraced “perpetual adolescence.” Some of this is our fault, evidently: staring at our smartphones for hours on end has obliterated our attention spans. Yet Sasse also places blame at the feet of his own generation for its “reluctance to expose young people to the demands of real work.”

Weinstein, however, offers another explanation. She attributes the acute modern need for additional grow-up instruction to class and demographics. Her typical adulting student is probably someone whose childhood was tech-dependent and activity-rich, the sort of high-achiever kid who was repeatedly told to bring home good grades in order to get into a good college. “Whatever folks are really being pressured for college prep, they’re just not getting as much time and exposure at home hanging out with their family, learning how to unclog the kitchen sink, or hang a picture on the wall,” she says.

Lots of those over-scheduled and test-prepped teens of the aughts also missed out on erstwhile educational staples like home economics and shop classes, where high-school kids once learned how to darn a sock or hold a hammer; many schools began mothballing these mandatory courses in the 1990s. As a result, legions of American high-school graduates are being unleashed on the world without any basic skills. Some higher-education institutions, such as New Jersey’s Drew University, have stepped in to offer “Adulting 101” classes in things like beginner car care for their undergraduates.

The Adulting Collective doesn’t rely solely on Weinstein’s expertise for its courses, although it appears that designing an adulting curriculum is just as much of a challenge as growing up. Right now, the website contains some short posts and links to videos explaining a few skills, which is a deviation from the original idea to enlist instructors to offer online lessons. According to Weinstein, the new plan heading into 2019 is to build out a membership program that involves action challenges similar to the nutrition course I took part in. “One of the things I’ve learned as a therapist is a lot of times a little bit of accountability to somebody helps us achieve goals and get tasks done,” she says.

To Swyers, what’s extraordinary in Adulting Ed isn’t the curriculum itself, which is a pretty standard mix of self-improvement and personal finance tips. It’s the notion of branding such lessons under the “adulting” rubric. After all, classes geared toward grown-ups and their skills are all over the place. Visit any big-box hardware store and chances are there’s some sort of hands-on workshop taking place, for example. “If somebody is willing to be taught, for instance, basic kitchen skills--which people pay for all the time--they don’t call it an ‘adulting collective.’ They call it a cooking class,” Swyers says.

The difference, says Weinstein, is that the way younger adults are expected to grow older and assume our place in the world has dramatically changed: “I don’t think it’s a ‘hapless Millennial’ kind of thing at all. I just think there are things that are harder about the world today.”

Case in point: The spiraling costs of higher education. Those emerging adults are entering the workforce with massive student loans to pay off; no wonder some days all they can manage to do is Instagram bewildered-dog memes. “I have clients graduating from school with over $100,000 dollars worth of debt,” she says. “When you’re paying a mortgage’s worth of school debt every month, you’re probably going to need a little help stashing some money away in an emergency fund.”

Indeed, the most useful takeaways from my own brush with the adulting industry involved money management. Last fall’s challenge on budgeting included a chart for itemizing monthly breakdowns of expenses: so many dollars toward utilities, housing, food, clothing, and so on. After six months of following the chart I completed during the challenge, I managed to save up a sizable emergency fund of eight months’ worth of expenses--not bad for a freelance writer who graduated college with $250 to his name, and well worth the $5 I paid for the course itself.

The class was theirs. But the experience was all mine. And with my savings in order, I was freed up to stash excess cash in an additional account my wife and I hold to save for a future home down payment. With a house on the horizon, we’ve recently turned our attention to the prospect of having children sooner rather than later.

#adulting #adulting classes

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jimmyjohnsmnm · 4 years ago

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Fast Tips And Tricks Of CBD Oil Home Business - The Promising Options

The Clinical Advantages Of CBD

Cannabidiol, or CBD as it is widely known, is one of many chemical substances that make-up cannabis. Cannabidiol was first recognized by a German doctor, Reinhold Voll, by carrying out a medical subtraction when he was searching for an unknown substance that caused an individual to have anxiety attacks. He chose to test the extract for his investigation. He saw that half of the individuals who took the extract from the cannabis plant displayed improvement while the other 50 percent did not demonstrate improvement. After even further examination, he learned that CBD has the same therapeutic characteristics as THC, which are the psychoactive substances found in marijuana. In order to make use of CBD, you will need to buy cannabis oil extract that includes CBD exclusively. You must never buy pure CBD due to the fact that it is ineffective due to the fact that it cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. It needs to undergo an oral or intravenous first injection to reduce its effect inside the body. Cannabidiol must be formulated in high dosage so that it might realize its medicinal objectives. These reports have uncovered that CBD is reliable in decreasing the symptoms of assorted stress disorders, like chronic pain, depression, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder. Health practitioners do not encourage people to consume cannabis or CBD because there isn't any corroboration that there is any long-term health advantages. So, what dosage of CBD oil would be perfect to take care of stress? You'll notice a number of brands of CBD soft drink and capsules around in the market these days that hold as high as forty doses of CBD for relieving a variety of medical ailments. Taking in large amounts of CBD in supplements and pills can possibly result in very bad side effects consisting of sleepiness, giddiness, confusion, problems in sleeping, queasiness, and weight loss. In addition to the health rewards of CBD, it in addition has a few detrimental negative effects, including mild sedation, problems in swallowing, and higher blood pressure. Even though it is most effective in helping individuals who are diagnosed with medical conditions and disorders of the central nerve system, like epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease, CBD may have some favourable influence on some individuals affected by major conditions like cancer. Having said that, more scientific studies need to be conducted to determine its exact benefits. As of now, CBD remains to be the most encouraging natural medicine for diseases including cancer, AIDS, and Alzheimer's.

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Bill to Legalize CBD in Dietary Supplements Gains More ...

While action on H.B. 8179 has been on pause, industry leaders are encouraged by the traction and bipartisan support it’s gaining in Congress.

In September, the Hemp and Hemp-Derived CBD Consumer Protection and Market Stabilization Act of 2020 (H.R. 8179) was introduced to Congress in attempt to regulate cannabidiol (CBD) in dietary supplements. If passed, it would be the first non-medical CBD product to be approved and regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

And while no tangible action has been taken on that bill since its introduction, U.S. Hemp Roundtable (USHR) has been working behind the scenes to gather the support of now 30 co-sponsors of the bill. The newfound support, as well as input from the FDA, has industry participants hopeful the bill will pass.

Jonathan Miller, general counsel for USHR, says gathering the new sponsors has been the result of both asking USR members to send emails to their state representatives as well as holding virtual meetings with nearly 200 political offices across the country. The effort has resulted in bipartisan support: 18 of the bill’s sponsors are Democrats, while 12 are Republicans.

“While everyone is familiar these days with CBD, most members of Congress and their staffs are not familiar with all the nuances, what the FDA has done, what the FDA hasn’t done,” Miller says. “It’s been a real educational process, which makes the fact that we have 30 co-sponsors such a big deal. To take initiative is so complex and so nuanced.”

In addition to congressional support, the bill has also received support from more than a dozen industry organizations and nearly 50 companies, according to a white paper from U.S. Hemp Roundtable.

https://www.hempgrower.com/article/hb-8179-cbd-dietary-supplements-gains-congressional-support-update/

I came across that review on At Home CBD Business when doing a search on the internet. Be sure to pause to share this blog if you enjoyed it. Thanks a lot for taking the time to read it.

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crimson-of-the-earth · 7 years ago

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Why I train for mat wrestling [Drama and Long Post alert]

Bonus Game: Take a shot of whatever beverage you have whenever you see the word/phrase ‘I’ve’, ‘I’ve never been’ or ‘I’ve been’.

So I’ve been training for mat wrestling for only a few weeks, three times a week, and I’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding the reason behind it and why I don’t just enroll in a wrestling school where I could learn for, y’know, pro-wrestling or TV wrestling. Well, the answers are a lot more personal than just me wanting to start a wrestling career.

It’s more for restoring my self-confidence, for distracting me from my depression and to remind myself that, no matter what anyone says, I am worth something.

For most of my life, I’ve always been told that I had no useful or helpful hobbies, activities, past times, etc., etc. My hobbies have always involved me sitting on my ass, either writing songs/stories, gaming, critiquing movies; stuff like that. I’ve never really been a sports person, I’ve always felt uncomfortable at the thought of going someplace, and training with other people. I guess it comes from social anxiety or just worrying that the more experienced people would laugh at my inability to do the most basic drills.

I’ve been trying a ton of sports to try and prove to myself (because honestly, at this point, I’ve gone numb to what people say about me) that I can do something other than sit on a chair and exercising only my fingers. I’ve tried sports like fencing, arnis/kali/eskrima/whatever you wanna call it (but only because it was part of my schools’ curriculum to learn it), volleyball; I’ve never really been good at any of them or I couldn’t stay training for long because in the case of fencing, I took it for summer vacation and I couldn’t keep training since I had to go back to school.

A lot of people in my country don’t take E-Sports seriously, or don’t even think it counts as a sport at all, so I couldn’t brag that I’m technically an E-Sports athlete. So I had to think of an activity that I would love and at the same time, be useful for things such as self-defense, and as a sort of therapy to go along with my medication.

I’ve always thought about training for wrestling but at the time, I was 16 and my mom was still supporting me and my sister through college so I couldn’t just ask her to shell out money we so obviously need to put us through college. Even as my sister graduated, I still couldn’t ask because she just started her work and it was still our mom who was supporting us.

It wasn’t until my father’s (God bless his soul) uncle volunteered to sponsor my training. This uncle of mine is also helping with my education to help lighten my mom and my sister’s burdens. And apparently, depression runs in the family on my paternal side, so when he heard that I was planning to train, he supported it almost immediately and sent us money to pay for the training fee.

Ever since, I’ve gotten a lot better and more athletic. I’ve lost a considerable amount of weight and I’ve gotten my confidence back. And I never felt uncomfortable training there as well, since everyone there treats me like I’m a close friend. It’s a great feeling, knowing that I can finally say that I’m more than just a gamer, writer or a critic, that I actually get up off my ass and train and improve my health.

But the best feeling it gives me is when I make my mom proud. Whenever I go to train, she goes with me (because the scheduled time I train tends to start and end well into the night. That, and also because I’m still her ‘baby’, even though I’m 19) and I can tell that she knows it was worth it to spend hours trying to find a suitable fighting academy to train me, and that it’s worth it because she knows it’s making me happy.

So anyway, I hope that answers all of your questions so I can clear out my inbox. See y’all next time.

#text #Personal #Vent #wrestling

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lawrencedienerthings · 4 years ago

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How much do we know about marijuana’s medical capabilities after 163 years of claims? Just a little.

#chronicpain😷 ✨ 🌍

more news https://northdenvernews.com

It’s not so much the claims made about the magic qualities of cannabinoids that prick up the ears — curing tuberculosis, anxiety, chronic pain, liver disease. Pretty standard hype in a world of consumers slathering themselves inside and out with anything labeled CBD or THC.

It’s the year.

The advertising hype about miraculous treatment of “general debility” and “nervous excitement” plaguing the populace came in 1857.

Skip to the now, and the Food and Drug Administration is sending warning letters to cannabinoid marketers in Colorado and other states ordering them to cease claiming they can alleviate everything from autism to hepatitis to cancer and Tourette’s syndrome.

It’s been 163 years — have we learned anything scientific about the medical properties of marijuana products?

A little.

Colorado, California and a small handful of other states are trying to lead the way by steering funds derived from marijuana legalization toward controlled, peer-approved studies assessing the medical effectiveness of cannabis compounds. Colorado began in 2014 with a $7 million commitment from medical marijuana registration fees, and the state health director saying it was time to move from the “anecdotal” toward “good science.”

Trevor Regas, a biology master’s student at CSU Pueblo, defoliates hemp plants at the university’s Institute of Cannabis Research experimental greenhouse. The institute studies the hemp plants’ non-psychoactive agent, cannabidiol, or CBD. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)

When it comes to marijuana and two of its key components, THC and CBD, “there are a lot of claims, and like anything people are using or consuming there needs to be the research behind it to validate those claims,” said Chad Kinney, director of the state-funded Institute of Cannabis Research and professor of chemistry at Colorado State University Pueblo.

What pre- and post-legalization studies have pinpointed is that THC, the psychoactive compound from marijuana that produces a “high” for users, is medically effective for a few conditions including chronic neuropathic pain, muscle spasticity from multiple sclerosis and nausea and weight loss in cancer patients.

CBD, short for cannabidiol, has no psychoactive effects, and is being studied for a number of “plausible” if as-yet unproven claims, said Dr. Igor Grant, director of the state-funded Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California San Diego. The only truly proven area so far for CBD is for severely debilitating epilepsy seizures in young children, research that grew out of a cluster of Colorado cases and treatments.

Other areas for CBD are “promising,” though years and multiple studies away from getting medical sanction, Grant said, including rheumatoid or inflammatory arthritis, anxiety disorders and inflammatory bowel disease.

Post-traumatic stress disorder was one of the proposed medically qualified treatments that prompted Colorado’s move into state-sponsored research six years ago. Advocates had sought approval for such prescriptions for years. Some state officials and medical researchers wanted to see credible evidence marijuana was effective for PTSD before expanding allowed conditions.

Though the state legislature in 2017 added PTSD to the list of qualifying conditions, Grant currently places the disorder in the plausible, yet unproven, category begging for more research. There is evidence that the THC in marijuana affects memory, with a negative connotation of fuzziness or “burnout.” But softening or blurring memory may be a useful approach to neutralizing PTSD, which can be described as “hyper-memory,” Grant noted.

“I’m not one to throw something away just because it’s anecdotal,” Grant said. “Anecdotal can be a clue. Our job as researchers and physicians is to figure out what is true and what isn’t.”

Advocates have been hoping for medical studies to prove out positive theories on health impacts, but safety and efficacy studies often prove out negatives as well, Grant noted. Many over-the-counter potions advertise CBD as a rub-on ingredient for pain treatment, but researchers have little idea what dosage of CBD is being put in many materials, or how much of that gets absorbed through skin.

In an aquaponics experiment at CSU, Pueblo’s Institute of Cannabis Research, the waste product of tilapia is used to feed hemp plants. The plants’ height and root mass are monitored to see if there is a benefit to this type of system as compared to conventional growing methods such as soil. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)

The child epilepsy studies, meanwhile, have found positive impacts on seizures at dosages of 600 milligrams of CBD or greater, while many CBD supplements come at 10 milligram levels, Grant noted. At higher does, CBD can interfere with liver function.

The mythology of marijuana and its products as the harmless, fun drugs full of promise needs to be filtered through better science.

“They’re not magical. They can have some bad effects,” Grant said.

Who’s in charge here?

Over the years, Colorado has moved control of state marijuana research money from the public health department to the institute in Pueblo. Research grants are now intended to be divided between medical studies, on subjects such as bowel disease or sleep disorders, and agriculture or product development, such as growing conditions or uses of hemp.

When the state put marijuana research at Pueblo four years ago, funding began at $900,000 a year, then doubled to $1.8 million, all funded by marijuana-derived taxes and fees. Budget woes have now cut that to $1 million a year, Kinney said, hardly enough to fund credible clinical trial-category studies that take place at multiple sites and last for years.

Some states have separate pools of money for more social science-oriented research related to marijuana, such as surveys on changes in rate of use among different age groups after legalization, or seeking accurate legal standards for driving under the influence of THC.

A few other states, their university systems and some philanthropists have joined the push for credible marijuana research. Grant and Kinney mentioned the Oregon Global Hemp Innovation Center; Louisiana State University in agriculture; Pennsylvania’s Thomas Jefferson University Lambert Center for Medicinal Cannabis; the Pennsylvania Department of Health; and Washington State University-Pullman.

Two-month-old hemp seedlings await transplant at the Institute of Cannabis Research. All the hemp plants at the institute are propagated from the seeds of a mother plant and share the same DNA. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)

Emily Lindley, an assistant professor in the Department of Orthopedics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, received $742,000 in Colorado money to study cannabis as a treatment for chronic back and neck pain.

“We are almost done with the clinical trial, no results to report yet,” Lindley wrote in an email. “Well-designed clinical trials are critical in determining the clinical relevance of cannabis for back and neck pain. Without such clinical trials, physicians cannot make clear, evidence-based recommendations to their chronic spine patients on the use of cannabis.”

At CSU-Pueblo, Kinney said, researchers are using some of the grant money to attempt to prove hemp’s potential for environmental remediation, among other experiments. In another lab, Sang Hyuck Park, a molecular biologist at Pueblo, and graduate assistants grow new strains in greenhouses in search of higher CBD content that would boost agricultural enterprises. Isolating and boosting CBD will help other researchers study the most useful applications of the chemicals, Park said.

Asked what he would do with the money if he suddenly was handed $10 million more for marijuana research, UC San Diego’s Grant said he would focus on population subsets where risks are different, and on longitudinal studies showing long-term impacts of cannabis use.

For example, neuropathic pain. This is not acute, post-trauma pain, but chronic nerve damage not always located at the site of an injury. You break a small foot bone, for example, and for years afterward suffer nerve pain and hot flashes up and down your leg or back.

Credible studies have proven short-term benefits of cannabis for that pain, Grant said. “What we don’t know is if in three years, is it still helpful? Do you have to take more and more? We need some longer term outcome studies if we’re going to prescribe these as medicines.”

In the elderly, antipsychotic drugs used in nursing homes for Alzheimer’s or dementia are “really hard on older people,” Grant said. Studies using THC or CBD in that population are long overdue.

Delivery methods are also in dire need of study, Grant said. Many medical uses suggest smoking, where chemicals are quickly absorbed into the bloodstream. An oral dose, by contrast, can take an hour to digest, depends on other foods consumed and is metabolized differently among patients. But “most people don’t want to smoke joints or vape, so we need to look at the oral form more,” or whether it can absorb through skin, Grant said.

A new FDA study reported this month in Hemp Industry Daily underlined the problems with dosing in the thinly-regulated world of CBD miracle claims. “Of the 102 products tested this year that were labeled as having CBD, 18 had less than 80% of the amount indicated, while another 46 were within 20% of the amount advertised. Thirty-eight products had more than 120% of the CBD indicated,” the publication said.

While various product-boosters are making claims they can’t back up with science, the researchers involved with cannabis are more confident than ever they are dealing with a plant hosting a uniquely broad and effective array of compounds. There truly is great promise, and that’s why basic science needs running room, they said.

“We’ve just started to scratch the surface with cannabis,” Kinney said.

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gethealthy18-blog · 4 years ago

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348: How to Minimize Your Exposure to Toxins & Effective Detox Protocols With Dr. Sandison From Neurohacker

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/348-how-to-minimize-your-exposure-to-toxins-effective-detox-protocols-with-dr-sandison-from-neurohacker/

348: How to Minimize Your Exposure to Toxins & Effective Detox Protocols With Dr. Sandison From Neurohacker

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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Katie: Hello and welcome to “The Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and wellnesse.com. That’s Wellnesse with an “E” on the end. It’s my new line of personal care products like hair care and toothpaste.

This episode is all about toxins and detox. I’m here with Dr. Heather Sandison, who’s the founder and the medical director of the North County Natural Medicine and the founder of Marama, which is a residential care facility for the elderly. The reason I wanted to have her on, she specializes in neurocognitive medicine and neurohacking. And she’s been trained to specifically address things that affect the brain like autism, ADD, depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s, and she has a really unique system for doing that and her elderly care facility is doing this with patients and seeing incredible results. So, in this episode, we talk about how you can minimize your exposure and how to effectively detox from the three big toxins as well as how to support your natural detox systems in the body. It’s a really fascinating and far-ranging episode. Without further ado, let’s jump right in. Dr. Heather, welcome. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Heather: Thanks for having me.

Katie: I am so excited to jump in with you and talk about different types of toxins and how to effectively detox. But I also always love hearing the background, especially someone I’ve just met and can’t wait to talk to. So, to start off, can you explain a little bit about your background and how you became a naturopathic doctor that specializes in this?

Dr. Heather: Yes. So I had my own personal health issues. When I was an undergrad, I was doing pre-med and then came up against an autoimmune disease as well as TMJ. I couldn’t open my mouth even enough to brush my teeth. And so I went to the medical doctor and had a horrible experience. And then I went to anyone who would listen. I went to the dentist, multiple dentists, I went to acupuncture. I went to the psychiatrist, you know, the psychologist. I went to pretty much anyone who someone said might be able to help. And finally, I ended up seeing a DO, she was actually a doctor of osteopathic medicine. And she and I chatted, she did craniosacral work and then said, “Hey, have you ever heard of naturopathic medicine? If I could do it all over again, that’s what I would do.”

And so she turned me on to naturopathic medicine. And when I heard just the perspective of naturopathic doctors and the approach that they took to medicine, really looking at the cause of disease versus putting a band aid on it in the form of surgery or medication that had side effects, I was like, ah, this is what I’ve been imagining for so long, I didn’t realize that it already existed. I didn’t have to create it, somebody else had already created this system of medicine. And so then at that point, it just became a matter of when I would go to naturopathic school not if.

Katie: Nice. Yeah, and I think there’s…I would guess most listeners pretty well understand what a naturopathic doctor does and how that differs from other types of medicine. But can you just kind of give a little bit of an overview there as well?

Dr. Heather: Absolutely. So we do the same four years of medical school and we have step one boards after two years. Those first two years are deep dives into the biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, we have a gross lab where we have to dissect a human body. You know, a lot of it is the same. And then we take this big exam that lasts for an entire day at the end of two years. And then at the end of four years, we have, you know, multi-day exams to become licensed.

And the second set of two years and the four-year medical program for us is different from conventional medicine. And then instead of doing rotations, we are in a teaching clinic and we’re learning about modalities, things like hydrotherapy, and herbal medicine, lots of nutrition, lots of the foundations of health.

And so instead of learning about surgery and delivering babies, we are in a clinic where we’re talking to people about their diet and nutrition and lifestyle. And then we can also provide, you know, referrals to surgery. We can also write prescriptions. So we’re trained and licensed as primary care providers but our specialty is more in the lifestyle things that can help prevent people from getting on medications or potentially even help them get off.

Katie: I think that’s awesome. And that was a big part of my own puzzle piece, early on after I started having kids I had what I would eventually find out was Hashimoto’s. But it took years and I had been to many, many doctors who tested…I would guess what the standard of care tests were mainly just T3, I don’t remember what else they tested, but they wouldn’t test antibodies or TSH. And it wasn’t until I found a naturopathic doctor that I was able to actually start figuring out what was wrong and working to correct it.

And it blew me away to realize, after being in the conventional medical model for so long, and it being more just lab tests and prescriptive and even being told by doctors, you know, “Your diet doesn’t really have any impact on your health other than weight.” To work with a naturopathic doctor and be asked about lifestyle, and stress, and food, and sleep, and so many other factors. And that was when I was researching as well and learning just how intricately involved all those things are.

So I think for a lot of people, especially someone with a complex health issue, finding a practitioner who’s willing to look at all of those pieces is super important. And I know, from researching for this interview, that you have done a lot of research specifically in the area of toxins and detox and how to mitigate things like that. So let’s start broad and can you kind of explain…I feel like that word encompasses a lot of things. But explain the nature of kind of what toxins are and what’s happening when they interact with our bodies?

Dr. Heather: So for a minute, I just want to take even one more step back. So I talked about being really inspired to go into naturopathic medicine because naturopaths really value treating the cause of disease. So complex chronic disease like Hashimoto’s, or a lot of what I treat, which is like, autism, brain-related things, autism, Alzheimer’s, even depression, anxiety, these things all have…there’s a cause. If we look at the human body, it’s a complex system and these chronic complex disease states come from an imbalance…and really any complex system, right, if it’s the financial system, or if it’s agricultural systems, whatever complex system we’re talking about, if there’s a glitch in the system, it’s usually because of an imbalance.

I would even go so far as to say it’s always because of an imbalance, too much, too little, in the wrong place, or at the wrong time. And if we can help to correct that imbalance, then we can create more harmony in the system, so that it behaves better, right, you get more optimal function from it. And so the five things that I believe cause complex chronic disease, it really can be distilled down to imbalance in these five areas., toxins, structure, stress, nutrients, and then infections.

And I’ve chosen to really dive deep into the toxins. And that’s because, from the conventional perspective, like you discovered with your Hashimoto’s journey, the conventional medicine, they completely ignore this unless it’s extreme toxicity, right. Unless somebody’s like swallowed a can of paint, right, then they don’t really want to hear about any of these long-term insidious kind of low-level toxins that may be disturbing certainly endocrine function.

So I really feel like it’s almost like my responsibility to go deep into these toxins because so many of my patients have been told that conventional medicine has nothing for them. They don’t know why there’s nothing that they can do, but they have all of this fatigue or headaches or insomnia, autoimmune diseases coming up. And so what can we do about that? Well, from my perspective, there are essentially…I call them flavors like ice cream. There’s three flavors of toxins. And I look at them in these categories because it’s what’s easiest to test.

So the first flavor is heavy metals. And I tend to do that using provocation. So I do wanna get some sort of provocation agents so that we know what’s in the system over time because some of these get stored. They’re not alive so they’re not procreating, so you don’t get more and more and more in your system unless you’re consuming, excuse me. So if you’re ingesting heavy metal either through eating copious amounts of like fish, especially the predatory fish, so things like shark or tuna, swordfish, those have high levels of heavy metals in them.

And then the other way that people are exposed to metals is through their dental amalgams, and often getting them out is one of the highest sources of exposure. And so doing that with a dentist who really understands how to mitigate your risk is important. So heavy metals and then mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are like heavy metals in that they’re not alive. So myco is yeast or mold, and it’s the toxins that yeast or molds produce. So again, with that, I tend to provoke…and I’m mentioning this provocation part because there is disagreement in the field. So if you talk to different experts, some will wanna provoke and others will not. But you know, my pattern is to do it, it’s how I was trained, and it’s the way I’ve done it for so long. But when I look at a lab, I know what it means when I’ve done it my way.

So with mycotoxins, we tend to provoke with some glutathione and with some sweating, and you can do that from home. And then you collect urine and we can see how many mycotoxins are in your system or get a sense of how many mycotoxins are in your system. And potentially even which type of mold created that mycotoxin.

So, Stachybotrys, or you may have heard of this as black mold, that can produce certain types of mycotoxin. And then Chaetomium a different type of mold and that produces different types of mycotoxins, as does Aspergillus or Penicilliums. So if that has been growing in a, you know, office building or in your bedroom or bathroom, a building or a room you spend a considerable amount of time in then those mycotoxins can certainly accumulate in your system.

And then the third flavor of toxin that we look for is the chemical toxins. So I look for about 20 of these in a lab test I run and again, we use a little bit of provocation, through glutathione or sweat. And these ones… I’m sure you’ve heard there’s like 80 something thousand chemicals on the planet, at this point. We don’t test for all 80,000 but we get a sense of okay, what are the petrochemicals, or the ones that are associated with gasoline and you know, are burning fossil fuels. So what are the petrochemicals? What are the parabens or PCBs? Some of the things you might see showing up in personal care products, do you have a few?

So we measure a few of the petrochemicals, a few of the parabens, PCBs. We measure glyphosate, which is what we think of as the active ingredient in Roundup. So pesticides and herbicides, we measure a handful of those but certainly glyphosate. And then we can also look at things like styrene that comes from styrofoam and chemicals that might be associated with getting your nails done a lot.

So we look at a handful of these, about 20 of them, but from different categories. And for me, this is often very eye-opening. I have a patient who… She’s just absolutely amazing, very committed to an organic, non-toxic lifestyle in her home. And we ran this test because I couldn’t figure out why she was so fatigued. And sure enough, after doing some digging, after doing this test, I was like, “Why are your pesticides and herbicides off the charts, higher than any ones I had ever seen and you’re eating an organic diet?” And she was like, “Oh, I do Ikebana” which is Japanese flower arranging.

So this amazing woman, she like…for low-income families, she creates these beautiful flower arrangements to send to the hospital for these people who have been hospitalized but couldn’t afford to get like a beautiful flower arrangement, right. So she does that two days a week, she volunteers, and she’s up to her elbows in the pesticides and herbicides that we won’t even spray on food. So we had no idea that this was gonna pop up. I had no idea to like ask her the question, right, do you do flower arranging? But when we ran the test, it popped up. It surprised us both. But she was then able to wear gloves, you know, a very simple intervention that totally reduced her exposure and then changed her symptoms.

Katie: That’s amazing. Yeah, I think it’s important…that’s why testing is so great to realize…like, who would have thought to even test for that, you know? Like, finding those things that can make such a big difference. So understanding toxins, I think, like all of these inputs that can come in, I’ve always thought of the analogy a little bit like a bucket. Like, we all have a point at which things will overflow, and you can kind of put a lot of stuff in, and whatever you put in eventually when you reach the top, it’s gonna overflow and something’s gonna happen. And that’s kind of how I’ve always thought of sort of toxins, and for my case, autoimmune disease that probably a lot of factors went into that for me like stress and exposure to certain environmental toxins and lack of sleep, and poor diet, and a lot of things.

And then for me, it manifested in Hashimoto’s, but I think that part of the equation seems different for everybody potentially. So what are some ways that you see, clinically, this overflow of toxins manifesting in people?

Dr. Heather: You’re absolutely right, and you bring up such a great point, right. It’s not only what’s going out, but it’s what’s coming in. And I would even start with 75% of environmental illness, 75% of my job is identifying what’s coming in and turning it off. So turning…I think of it, like turning off the faucet that’s filling that bucket. It’s such a great analogy. So how I see this manifesting, you know, my… This is my bias, of course, because this is what I do. But I really think that everyone should be sort of evaluating what degree of toxins they’re exposed to.

So looking at, what is all this stuff I put on my skin, you know, what am I choosing to consume in terms of my diet? My mom came… I had a baby about 18 months ago. My mom showed up at my house for six weeks to help me. And she had been complaining about her memory loss, so she was forgetting names that she would have never forgotten before. She was having to write down grocery store lists, when usually she’s so good at that, missing appointments, little things. At this point, she was just joking about it but she was scared, I could tell she was afraid that she was losing her mind.

So she showed up at my house and I, of course, was adamant there was not one thing that wasn’t organic coming into my house. So every single thing in the house was organic. And she was not committed to that beforehand. So she showed up, we ate only really, really good food because, of course, I had a newborn, and my mom stopped complaining about her memory loss by the time she left just six weeks later. So things like anxiety, depression, of course, autoimmune disease, it’s very hard to link them directly to toxic exposure, because it manifests in so many different ways. Toxins, they’re ubiquitous in our environment, right, you cannot avoid all of them.

But there are some certain things that you can avoid, like certainly what you choose to consume in terms of food, what you choose to put on your skin, you can change that. You can educate yourself about that. So there are some things that we can change and others that we can’t. But taking control of the things that we can change is so important and can have a profoundly big impact on our disease states and our wellness state, how good we feel even.

Katie: Absolutely. Okay, so let’s go deeper on that. I’d love to kind of delve into each of the three different types a little bit more because I think they’re not super well understood yet, or at least there seems to be a lot of confusion on some of them and how we’re exposed, and then how to undo the damage if we’ve been exposed. So let’s start with heavy metals first, can you give us a little bit more detailed overview of what are considered heavy metals, and where are we most commonly interacting with these?

Dr. Heather: Yeah, absolutely. So the big ones that you wanna be kind of most afraid of are lead and mercury, and these tend to be very neurotoxic. So lead…like everyone’s heard of Flint, Michigan, and how there was lead in the water and that led to lower IQs in the children who were exposed. So this is really, really, really important that we’re not exposed to lead. Lead used to be in paint. And in the ’70s that was outlawed so that no longer happens. But if you live in an old house, it’s not that I think people are, you know, licking the walls of the house, but it’s every time you open or close a door, open or close a window, it’s the rub, that friction that’s created, that can release a little bit of paint particle into the air and then you can breathe it in.

So, lead also can come from…you know, if you’re someone who makes jewelry, or if you are somehow exposed through some industrial process, right. If you’re working on cars or welding, you know. So most people aren’t exposed at high levels unless it ends up in the water. At least not… Now, I will say that people who were raised overseas because lead came out of the fuel, out of the gasoline also in the ’70s. But it tended to stay around in Central America and India and more of the third world countries, it was in the fuel for longer. And so I have patients who are in their ’60s and ’70s and they have very high levels if they were, say, raised in another country. And some people also of that generation who were raised in the U.S.

And then Mercury, like I had mentioned before, usually fish and then also the metal amalgams in the mouth. And then, unfortunately, coal power plants they produce mercury as well, so it can be in the air. And that’s one of those things we just don’t have control over. Cadmium is another big one and that tends to come from cigarette smoking. And those are kind of the three big one’s. Aluminum, tin, those come up as well. Gadolinium is a heavy metal that’s found in….if you get a lot of MRIs it’s in the contrast dye. And so I’ll see people with really high levels of that if they’ve had a lot of orthopedic MRIs.

And then, getting rid of those…you know, really all of these in terms of getting rid of the heavy metals, what you wanna do is open up your emunctories. Emunctory is the fancy naturopathic word for organs of elimination. And there are five organs of elimination, your liver, bowels, kidneys, lungs, and then skin and lymph. And I would love to go into the details about how to support each of those.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s such an important part to understand is that the body has channels to detox this and how we can support that. And for people listening who are thinking like okay, I don’t think heavy metals are an issue for me, I like that you went into there are common sources of exposure. And I actually had an uncommon one that ended up being part of my puzzle piece, which was in high school, I worked in a stained glass shop. And I didn’t even think about the fact that the metal that we used between the pieces of stained glass, and then the stuff that we would melt to make those stick together had lead in it. So that was something I had to deal with, as part of my own health journey. But yeah, walk us through how we can support all the different organs in that detox system.

Dr. Heather: You make such a great point, I ask people about their hobbies not only because of my patient who was doing the flower arranging, but also ceramics, the glazes often had lead in them. So like stained glass, glass blowing, jewelry making, some of these really fun, creative, wonderful hobbies can lead to exposures if we’re not savvy about what’s in these things.

So the Emunctory, no matter what your flavor of toxin is, that you’ve potentially been exposed to…of course, we wanna identify it, we wanna be able to identify it and get specific about how we get it out. But opening these amantrees and supporting these organs of elimination really is something that anyone can do.

So the lungs, detox breath work, there are lots of, you know, yogic breathing, yoga breath practices, there is online support that will take you through different breathing practices that help you to detoxify, right. If a cop pulls somebody over for driving funny on a Friday night, they are going to do a breathalyzer because one of the ways that we get rid of the toxins that we produce through drinking alcohol is by breathing them out. So this is true for many toxins. And we sort of forget, I think, that we can get rid of so much through our lungs. And it is certainly a pathway to take advantage of.

Now the flip side of that is that we can certainly inhale a lot of toxins. So one of the cheapest interventions and the best interventions is open your doors and windows in your house for at least an hour a day. And if possible, open the window of your office. The indoor air quality, it’s kind of…I think of it like a pool versus the ocean, right. There’s so much more air outside that is diluted of all of these toxins. So if you can open the windows and let that fresh air come in and dilute the indoor air, you’re gonna increase the air quality.

Now, of course, if you live or work right on top of a freeway, then that’s not gonna work as well. But for most of us, if we open the doors and windows, we can really increase the indoor air quality. So what we’re breathing in, again, we can reduce the particulate count in that.

The other thing that you can do is…particularly if you’re concerned about indoor air quality is you can get an air filter. And so I’ve had lots of patients whose symptoms have improved just by adding an air filter. And they don’t pay me but my favorite one is the GC Multi by IQAir, I really think that’s a very high-end quality one. There’s a lot out there that are very expensive, and they don’t work very well. So when given the opportunity, I do like to turn people on to that one, because it works. So that’s the lungs. Some ways that we can really increase our ability to detox through the lungs is one take breaths in and then two detox breath work.

The kidneys certainly water, water, water, water, water, and minerals. So having enough electrolytes in your system. And I don’t recommend distilled water, that doesn’t have enough of those minerals in it, but good high-quality spring water. And even having your water tested. I live in San Diego and we’re at the end of the Colorado River. We don’t have fabulous water quality for what’s coming out of the tap but we do have access to great spring water. So I recommend that people drink good high-quality mineral water that is out of glass, ceramic or stainless, not out of plastic and particularly those soft plastic bottles that have been sitting in the sun. That is a recipe for ingesting a lot of plastic chemicals, so definitely avoid those.

Drinking plenty of water. And if you don’t love water, then adding a little bit of lemon or adding a bit of mint or cucumber is something that makes it more flavorful for you. And detox teas, of course, can be very, very helpful. Certainly dandelion and thistle are good for both the kidneys and livers. So adding that to your daily routine can be very, very helpful. So that’s lungs, kidneys. Liver, so great things for the liver are certainly dandelion, milk thistle, and then we need all of those good nutrients to help the liver to detoxify.

So the liver, in all of its wisdom, if we don’t have enough of the nutrients that are necessary for phase two detox, the liver will slow down phase one detox. And this is because… Alcohol, again, is a really good example. When we drink a glass of wine or something it goes to the liver and the liver converts it in phase one detox into acetyl aldehyde. That acetyl aldehyde is what makes us hang over, that’s actually more toxic than the wine that we first consumed. And so the liver just blows my mind, this divine design, it’s so incredible. The liver stops phase one detox if we don’t have all the nutrients that are necessary to get that acetyl aldehyde, that toxic intermediate, fully conjugated and eliminated from the body.

So having plenty of those nutrients, things like NAC, the B vitamins, minerals, glutathione, can be very, very helpful. All of those things help to make sure that there isn’t a glitch in the system there, that there’s nothing gumming it up. And then the liver… So getting plenty of that liver support is super helpful. And then the livers spits out a toxic sludge called bile. And that goes into the gallbladder, if you’ve got one, and then into the gut. So ways that we can help support the gut are primarily through fiber. Fiber is one of the best things that you can do, as long as you’re getting plenty of water and it doesn’t turn to concrete. Having a bowel movement every day, at least once a day… If you’re not, it’s constipation and needs to be addressed.

So that’s really where I start with most of my patients it’s, if they are not having a daily bowel movement, we do not wanna start mobilizing cellular toxins. So toxins kind of…I think of it like the snow-capped mountains is the cells and then when you have a bowel movement, that’s like releasing it into the ocean, that’s the end of the river. And so we don’t wanna create a flood in the middle. And so opening up the river mouth or having bowel movements, sweating, urinating, all of those things help us to get the toxins actually outside of you. So elimination is what’s so important.

So the bowel movement, if you can take that toxic sludge called bile and bind it with binders, things like chia, flax, psyllium, charcoal, clay, chlorella, there’s a prescription when it will use, sometimes for certain mycotoxins, called cholestyramine. All of these binders it’s…I think of it like they’re giving the toxic sludge a hug and they’re holding on to it so they can take it out of the body and you can fully eliminate it through a bowel movement.

If we don’t have enough of those binders, then a process called enterohepatic recirculation will happen. And that fancy medical term basically is just saying that your gut is meant to absorb things, your colon is meant to absorb things. So if the bile sits in there too long, then your…and it’s not bound, it’s not being hugged by one of those binders, then your body will just reabsorb it. And then guess what? It goes right back to the liver. So now your liver has to take out yesterday’s trash and today’s trash, so it’s doing all this extra work. If you can just have a bowel movement every day, then your liver has much less work to do.

So lungs, kidneys, liver, bowels, and then skin and lymph. These ones are fun because you get to get a massage, okay, for all our mamas out there, you deserve one. So skin and lymph, lots of ways that we can support this, dry skin brushing even a rebounder. A mini trampoline helps to get your lymph going. Hot and cold showers, going back and forth between hot and cold, or if you have a plunge or something like that, absolutely, that’s fantastic. Lymphatic massage. A castor oil pack over the liver can also help with the liver and skin and lymph. There are so many fun things that we can do here. Saunas. Saunas are fantastic and I like…there’s some sauna blankets and there’s little saunas you can sit in that keep your head out. That tends to help people tolerate them a little bit more and they can stay in there longer.

You only need to sweat for about 10 minutes a couple of times a week and you’re getting a ton of toxins out. It is important to wipe those toxins off. So if you start sweating, you wanna either take a quick shower afterwards or use a washcloth or something, get the toxins off of you. Because when you’re hot like that, your pores are open, we’ve got toxins out, what we don’t wanna do is have you just reabsorb them. So really important with saunas to replace your electrolytes using water and then an electrolyte powder. Coconut water is a great one. And then make sure you rinse. And I typically say with cool water because that’ll get the toxins off and then it will close your pores back up.

Katie: Great advice. And a question I’ve seen come through a few times, I wonder if you might have an answer to, is some people seem to have, especially when they first start doing sauna or things that stimulate the lymph system or even from taking certain supplements that can be detoxifying, like magnesium, or greens, or algae, they’ll notice itching on their skin. Is that like a detox reaction or have you come across anyone having that clinically?

Dr. Heather: Yeah, lots. So absolutely, probably, a detox reaction. Although…you know, certainly itching we always wonder if there’s an allergy. And if you have a known allergy to something, then, of course, avoid it. But what I notice with… And I was sort of alluding to this with the analogy of the snow-capped mountains all the way down to the riverbed, out into the ocean. The analogy here is about mobilization at the cellular level, so that’s our snow-capped mountain. And then elimination at the level of the ocean or, you know, our bowel movements, urination, sweating, anything that eliminates it. So the ocean is outside of the body and our analogy of…our river is inside of the body.

So if we start to have too much snow melts, or we’re detoxing too much, at the cellular level, we’re not able to keep up, we’re not able to get enough elimination, not enough is leaving the body and so now we have more in the bloodstream. And what we see are things like rashes, we see headaches, we see fatigue, this is like the keto flu. A ketogenic diet is very detoxifying. And so sometimes people initially will have an increase in symptoms when they start on a detox diet or a detox plan.

My interpretation of that and my professional approach to that is, that is great information that tells us we’re probably on the right track, but what we need to do is slow down. Really, really important, this is not a no pain, no gain situation. This is an opportunity for us to communicate with our body about what it needs. And so if there is an increase in rashes or fatigue or headaches or anything like that, then we take that and we say, okay, let’s take less of the detox provocation agents or even less of the support and just slow things down a bit. Do the gentler approach, so spend less time in the sauna or, you know, focus on water, focus on the detox breath, focus on the things when you don’t have to add anything to the body but you’re really just focusing on elimination.

Katie: Yeah, that’s such a great point. Like I found for me…I think probably that balance is different for everyone. But when I was in the heat of the autoimmune disease, when it was at its worst, I had to be very careful with diet and eat very low inflammation. And then I had to…anything else beyond that, I had to do very slowly and make sure I was getting extra sleep. I didn’t do any really difficult workouts during that time, it was very much a period of rest and let my body rebuild slowly. And I think that’s such an important reminder is, especially when it comes to any of these things which can be very dangerous if you mobilize them too quickly. More is not always better and it’s not always just, you know, you should push through and do more to get through it quickly.

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Obviously, one of these toxins that you mentioned a little bit and I’d love to go deep on is mold, because this one has risen a little bit more to mainstream knowledge, I think, lately. People are starting to be aware that it can be a problem. But there’s still so much confusion about how to test for it, how to find out if it’s an issue, what to do about it if you do find mold, and if it really can actually have that dramatic of an impact on the body. So what are you finding when it comes to mold exposure?

Dr. Heather: Again, you know, the conventional community has really poo-pooed this idea for a long time. And I feel so grateful to people like Dave Asprey, Ritchie Shoemaker, and Neil Nathan, who have brought this to the forefront and really shown people that this can be a big part of what’s driving your symptom picture. And I have people who, you know, we address this, we figure it out, we address it and they go back to normal. And it’s so satisfying and I feel so lucky I get to do what I do when I get to see someone show up for their families again after treating this.

And I don’t wanna say that it’s an easy road by any stretch. Often when people come in and they test for mycotoxins and there’s a significant amount of that going on, I brace them, you know, this is a months to years long journey, not a days to weeks journey. So typically, we’re looking at about two years, maybe more depending on the amount of exposure and whether somebody is currently being exposed.

A lot of it is speculative in terms of why mycotoxins have become such a problem for people. And I don’t know, you know, if it’s a new thing, or if it was going on for a long time and we’re just kind of realizing it, the science is just catching up, or if it is really that we’re being exposed more. One of the theories is that the building materials, so things like drywall, have created more food for mycotoxins. Whereas, like old homes that were made of plaster, say, or brick, that wasn’t something that the molds like to eat as much, right, so you didn’t have as much risk.

And then the other thing that has changed is there’s a lot of fungicides in paint. And what we see is just like antibiotic resistance, you know, you add a bunch of antibiotics to the system and now the biota, the bacteria, it will change and be more resilient to that antibiotic. So with the fungus, what we think may be happening is that having so much fungicide in the paint is creating…molds are making more and more toxins. One of the things that we see is that like Candida, if you use an antifungal, if you swallow some nystatin say, then the Candida when it’s under threat will make a gliotoxin, so it’ll make a toxin. When you don’t have any nystatin in the system, and you can see this in a petri dish. When you don’t add an antifungal, the yeast, the Candida doesn’t make a toxin, right.

So depending on how threatened… From an evolutionary perspective, like if you put yourself in the role of yeast or a mold who’s on a piece wood competing with other microbes for food, then if you create toxins, then you’re gonna win for that food, you’re gonna get rid of these other, whoever you’re competing against. So you can see how adding more toxins or fungicides to the paint might increase the production of toxins for that mold. So this is all very speculative. I don’t wanna, you know, sound like we know for sure that this is going on, but it certainly can be one of those factors that’s influencing the increase in incidents of mold diseases, mycotoxin-related illness.

So for this, the way I test is I tend to use…like I mentioned, I do tend to provoke these and again, the consensus, there isn’t one. So different experts in this field have differing opinions, but it is the way I was trained and what I’m used to looking at, in terms of the results. So we’ll do a provocation using glutathione and sweating. And then people will collect their urine the next morning and send that off to the lab. There’s a couple of different labs that I use. And then, based on that, we create a plan that is very specific to the type of mycotoxin that shows up. So kind of like heavy metals, for mercury, we use certain chelating agents. For lead, we use different chelating agents.

For mycotoxins we have some degree…even though this is very new, we do have some degree of specificity that we can apply to how we treat the different mycotoxins. And so we create a plan together and then, like you said, we just go at the pace the body can tolerate because what we don’t wanna do is flood the system with toxins quicker than it can get rid of them.

Katie: Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. And so, for anyone listening just to make sure, because you’ve mentioned that term a couple of times about provoking. So basically, you can use different substances to provoke different things you’re trying to test for in the body. And then you can use, essentially, those same substances to help the body like continually release those things and eventually get rid of them, but you just want to be careful about the amount?

Dr. Heather: Yeah, thank you for clarifying. So, I started looking for mycotoxins years ago, maybe four or five years ago. And what I was finding is people who we knew had mold exposure, so they knew they were in a moldy house because somebody had done the environmental testing and they found the stachybotrys in the wall. They had awful symptoms that were clearly related to mold, and they might even have allergies to that mold. Well, we test their urine for mycotoxins and there would be nothing in the urine. And we were just pulling our hair out going, “Why is this? We know that they have lots of exposure, we can see that it’s in the environment, where did it go?” And what we found is that the sickest people, the reason they’re so sick is because they’re not eliminating, right, they’re holding on to these toxins.

And mycotoxins, they tend to be fat-soluble. So this is part of why they’re so dangerous for the endocrine system is because they can get glommed up in your pituitary or hypothalamus or up in your brain, in your lymph nodes, in your glands, like your thyroid, or your ovaries. So they can wreak havoc throughout the body because of their nature of being fat-soluble.

But what we found was, if we provoked them using something like glutathione, kind of…I think of it just like shaking it up, right. So you’re releasing some toxin from the cells, like the snow-capped mountains, right? And typically, not always, but a lot of times people feel a little worse after that, unfortunately. And if somebody starts to feel worse during the provocation process, we just stop it right then and go ahead and collect. Because what you’re getting is, again, back to that analogy of the snow-capped mountains, you’re releasing the snow, the toxin that’s in those cells, and now you’ve created flood.

Especially if you’re not having regular bowel movements, like you have a dam there, and now you have a flood and you can be causing a lot of destruction. So really important to have those emunctories open. But yes, that provocation process is also important because we wanna get an accurate result on the testing.

Katie: Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. And I know that you mentioned you use a lot of this in helping people with brain-related potential issues like autism or ADHD, and that we even see links with depression and anxiety. And before we went live, you also mentioned that you do a lot of work with people with things like Alzheimer’s and dementia. So I’m curious, like, obviously, I can see the connections easily for anyone who is dealing with any of those types of issues or with autoimmune disease, but it seems like in health, anytime we find patterns that can help people heal who are in crisis, also there’s lessons we can learn to optimize, even for people who hopefully aren’t dealing with those same kind of problems. So, from your clinical work and your research, are there strategies that we can all use, even if we’re not in health crisis, to help protect and improve our brain and our body using these strategies?

Dr. Heather: Yeah, absolutely. So my work with the Neurohacker Collective we are really focused on optimizing, especially brain function, right. It’s great when we can all show up and be fully present and engaged in our work, we can be contributing. And there are a lot of people I talk to who don’t really have anything going on right now that has maybe inspired them to reach out to a doctor. Like they don’t feel like they have a pathology or nothing’s wrong on their labs, they really just wanna get the most out of their day, out of their relationships, out of their work.

And so there are things that I certainly recommend. And, like we discussed, you know, toxins are relatively ubiquitous so if we can prevent the accumulation of toxins in our body, then we can prevent disease long term. So, absolutely, you know, one of the simplest easiest things people can do, kind of like opening the doors and windows, just take your shoes off at the door. We track in so many toxins. And then if we’re wearing shoes, and then we’re barefoot later on, we can absorb those toxins through our feet. And then if you’re getting into bed, you know, it’s so gross when you start to think about it. But just taking your shoes off at the door, creating that habit, is one of the best ways to reduce the toxic burden in your home and then in your body.

But other ways to optimize, certainly brain function, is exercise, getting your circulation going. Again, it really goes back to those foundations, really good nutrients coming in, getting plenty of good circulation through exercise. Like you mentioned sleep, we do so much of our detoxifying at night when we’re sleeping, particularly in the brain. So getting really good sleep and prioritizing that, especially those hours before midnight. So if you can get to bed by 9:00 or 10:00, and get a few solid hours before midnight that’s when we get most of our deep sleep, and do a really good job detoxifying.

And then, of course, back to having regular bowel movements. You know, regardless of whether or not you’re struggling with toxic exposure, high toxic burden, having a good regular bowel movement. All of our cells eat and poop, right, so we have our basic metabolic toxicity that builds up every day. And if we’re not eliminating that, then we can get all kinds of accumulation of all the nasty stuff.

Katie: Got it. And I’d love for you to talk a little bit about the facility that you run and the results that you’re seeing there. Because that’s really astounding and incredible what you guys are doing.

Dr. Heather: Thank you. So I have had North County Natural Medicine for a handful of years now and I started seeing a lot more dementia patients. I was trained by Dr. Dale Bredesen, who wrote a book called “The End of Alzheimer’s.” And so we’re getting…really, it was surprising to me how good the results were. I had really bought it, hook line and sinker, right, this story that once you have Alzheimer’s there’s really nothing you can do, like good luck with that, right.

So I was trained by Dr. Bredesen after being very impressed by what he had to say, it was very much in alignment with the way I approach any sort of complex chronic disease. And so I brought it back into my clinic, and then sure enough, kind of created a reputation around that. And had people calling and saying, “Hey, my loved one has Alzheimer’s, and I just don’t have the capacity to take care of them any more, where can I send them? Is there a care facility where, you know, they’re incorporating this?” And what I found was that there wasn’t.

So, of course, I was like, “Well, that can’t be too hard, why don’t we just create one?” And that was how Marama was born. And so Marama, I purchased at the end of December of 2019. And we took over…it was a hospice facility so we inherited five residents. And this also completely surprised me, two of the residents did pass pretty quickly after the transition, but three residents are still there. And one of them who was bed-bound is now walking. Another got kicked off of hospice and the other is about to get kicked off of hospice.

And so, what is this? April, so it’s been five, six months. And the only things we did for those residents…because we couldn’t change anything, you know, we can’t change their meds, they have their doctor’s orders. But what we did was we changed the diet, it’s 100% organic diet, and as much as possible, kind of this keto flex or Whole30 kind of paleo diet.

So we got rid of a lot…of course, all of the candies, the Skippy peanut butter is gone, the Wonder Bread is gone. Occasionally, I get complaints about too many seeds in the bread that they do get, but it’s worth it from what we can tell. We changed the food, add lots more veggies even if we have to hide them. And we switched all of the soaps, all of the personal care products, and all of the cleaning products as well. All of that got switched to non-toxic.

And what we’ve seen is amazing transformation in these people. And I’m not suggesting that at 88 or 94 they’re gonna go back to work or anything like that, but even their families have seen how much more alert they are, how much more engaged they are in conversation with them, how much happier they are, really, day to day. So it’s been really gratifying. And especially this guy that’s up and walking, it’s neat, it’s really fun to see.

Katie: I bet that’s incredible to watch. And it makes me think of, you know, this kind of conversation that’s come about the last few years about… You know, we’ve always had studies and related things to lifespan. And now we’re starting to see more of a focus on healthspan. And the idea of not just living a long time, but living well as long as possible, and living in a way that’s healthy and happy and has quality of life as well. And I think all this work that you’re doing is gonna be things that we start understanding all of the pieces that go into that and hopefully can avoid a lot of these problems.

And for those of us who are like navigating an autoimmune disease, there’s links there that are helpful. But also, just for those of us who want to optimize our lives in the best way possible, and create solid foundations for our kids, I think these are all really important keys to that. And with such a focus on neural health and brain health, I’m curious if you have any other tips for just kind of optimizing cognitive function for moms or for those of us working that can help us to be more efficient and effective and focused at work.

Dr. Heather: So meditation and exercise, essentially, moving meditation, I get it. I have an 18-month-old and two businesses, you know, like, there’s a lot going on. And there is, for all of us, and especially right now in this COVID crisis, you know, when our wearing multiple hats all over the place. And yet, it’s never been more important for me to get in a daily meditation and to get in some exercise. I cannot…it’s the best feeling medicine by far. Like, don’t worry about a test, don’t worry about anything else. If you can just do those things get in…and, of course, good food, you know.

There’s nothing more valuable than taking that time to reduce the stress or to really shift perspective, right. The stressors are not gonna go away but what we have control over…and this goes back to toxicity as well, right. Like, toxins are a lot about what we allow in. And we can think about this as food or as media or as, you know, the arts we allow in or the relationships. It’s what we choose to allow in is that first step of making sure we’re not overburdened with toxins. And then second, are we able to digest? Are we able to break it down into the components that make sense for us? Whether it’s a news story or it’s broccoli, right? Like, are we able to break it down? Do we have the capacity to digest it?

And then third, can we absorb the parts that serve us? So can we get the sulforaphanes out of the broccoli? And can we get the really important information from that news article? And can we get the love from our mother in law? Fourth, can we eliminate the parts that don’t serve us, right? So can we let go of whatever nastiness someone said, and take the good of the critical feedback they gave us? Can we get rid of the fiber? Can we have that bowel movement, right? Can we let go of the information that makes us more anxious and crazed?

So allowing that process to take place and giving ourselves the time, so that we have the capacity to fully process is, I think, paramount to being fully optimized whether it’s in our relationships with our in-laws, or our children, or our boss, or our colleagues, or our clients. Taking that time for ourselves away from all of the needs, and all of the hats and roles that we play, is essential. I cannot understate that or overstate that, excuse me.

Katie: I love it. And you mentioned a lot of resources in this episode, I’ll make sure I link to all of them in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. But specifically, you also have a podcast as well, right?

Dr. Heather: Yes. So I host “Collective Insights,” which is it through Neurohacker Collective, and it’s so fun. I’m sure you have the same experience. I absolutely love…it’s one of my favorite parts of my job just to pick the brains of experts in different fields whether it’s exercise, or diet, or longevity. There was a guy I got to pick his brain about orgasms. It’s just so fun, the people that I have the privilege to talk to and, you know, getting to be on the show with you today. So that’s been awesome. Thank you for having me.

Katie: Oh, it’s been a pleasure. We’ve covered so much. I think, hopefully, helped a lot of people. Another question I love to ask, as we wrap up, is if there’s a book or a number of books that have really dramatically impacted your life, and if so what they are and why?

Dr. Heather: So, right now professionally, I mentioned “The End of Alzheimer’s” by Dale Bredesen and then “Toxic” a book by Dr. Neil Nathan is the other one. So my practice is almost entirely built around putting those things into practice for people. So my clinical practice really relies heavily on the insights that those guys have gleaned and the data collection and research that they’ve done. And those books, they’re designed not just for doctors, but for people who are struggling with toxins or with Alzheimer’s. And there’s some overlap as well of course, because Alzheimer’s one of the things we wanna check for is the toxic burdens. So those books, if anyone is struggling with mycotoxin and illness or with Alzheimer’s, those are great places to start, where you can really get a lot of quality information.

Katie: I love it. I’ll make sure those are linked in the show notes, as well as have links for people to find you and keep learning if they’d like to or find out more about your clinic or your facility. But thank you so much, this has been such a fun interview, and I’m really appreciative of all the work you do.

Dr. Heather: Katie, thank you so much for making this awesome information available to people.

Katie: And thank you, as always, for listening and sharing your time with both of us today. We’re so grateful that you did. And I hope that you’ll join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/neurohacker/

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ejohnl · 7 years ago

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Life Updates galore! 12/18/17

Wow, what a month it has been! I can’t believe where I’m at right now. I just finished up my last semester of my undergraduate career with a 3.75 GPA which is the highest it has ever been. I worked my absolute ass off to get these grades and I’m so hella proud of myself for it. I really enjoyed all of my classes this year, even research methods which was almost the death of me. I got to know my professors really well and I felt like my voice was being heard by them and my classmates.

I finished up my fellowship at the University of Virgina a few weeks back and it was an incredibly rewarding experience. I was able to connect with 10 other transgender and gender non-conforming individuals to develop research topics relating to transgender healthcare issues which is so fucking rad. I have the amazing opportunity to work with some of these people in the spring writing grants and planning actual research out. HOW FUCKN RAD??

I got recommended by a professor of mine for this LGBT University program sponsored through the Freedom NH campaign so I will be working alongside 16 other LGBTQ+ people learning about queer activism and campaigning for the House Bior anti-discrimination of transgender people in public spaces. This will take place January-March and I’m really looking forward to developing a stronger sense of activism within my community.

I had a consultation for top surgery and will be HAVING TOP SURGERY January 17th!!!! Everything surrounding this is so incredibly surreal, I’m so thankful for the opportunity that I have to receive a procedure that will help further affirm my male gender identity. I’ve been taking a bunch of supplements to prepare me for the healing process and stopped smoking weed over two weeks ago because it can lead to complications. I’m actually feeling really good about it even though my anxiety has been increasing a bit since doing so. I know that it will all be worth it in the end. I opted-out of opioids because my mother has a previous addiction to narcotics so I will be consuming a lot of edibles post-surgery. I’m really glad that I have the ability to do so safely and legally (thank you Massachusetts you rock).

On December 28th, 2016 I had my yearly physical with my PCP. I weighed in at 252 lbs and was at risk of developing diabetes, high cholesterol, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. This is essentially when your triglycerides are too high and fat deposits form on and inside of your liver. Today I had an appointment and I weighed in at 186 lbs (with no clothes at home I’m about 183.6). I am no longer at risk for diabetes or high cholesterol and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is not on my doctor’s radar whatsoever. I can’t even begin to believe how different I not only look but how I feel as well. I used to be winded even just going up a flight of stairs or up a small incline on my way to class and now I can run a mile easy. Progress is not linear and my weight ebbs and flows, but I am constantly changing and always on the rise to a healthier lifestyle and I’m very grateful for it.

I had a minor procedure performed today which involved the insertion of 10 testosterone pellets into the subQ tissue of my glute max. These pellets will last roughly 3-4 months before another procedure will be performed to start another round. I made the decision because testosterone injections were getting expensive. Mass changed their regulation regarding T and will only allow pharmacies to fill one vial at a time. This meant I had to go back to Mass every two weeks to get a refill, which then cost me another copay. The pellet insertion is covered by insurance and only needs to be done every 3-4 months. Less money and less worry = awesome in my book. My doctor says that many of her patients prefer the pellets because it helps to assist with mood stabilizing and reducing ebbs and flows in T levels. I’ll make an update post each month on how this is going :)

I have a full-time job and I absolutely love the individuals I work with. I have learned more from my 6 months working with people with developmental and intellectual disabilities than I ever have any other job. They teach me patience and a deeper level of caring than I thought possible. These guys value the smallest of gestures and are thankful for things that I often take for granted every single day. Without even knowing it, they are helping make me a more thoughtful and loving human being.

Things are not perfect. I am at home and I do not have access to healthy food or a clean and safe environment to live in. I no longer have a counselor that I meet with once a week which is challenging for me as it has been a major aspect of my support system. However, I am utilizing resources as much as I can. I am on the waitlist for a counselor and am looking at different resources regarding healthy food access for low-income families. I’m finding ways to keep myself regulated using mindfulness and the various support structures I have in my life. I’m in a really good place considering how much I have going on and I am very thankful for everything.

2017 was a really difficult year for me at first. I struggled immensely with my depression and anxiety. Things got continuously worse throughout last semester and it felt like I wasn’t going to get through it all in one piece. But here I am, thriving in so many aspects of my life and I can’t wait to see what’s to come.

#me #ftm transition #college #update #life update #top surgery

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saiblln · 7 years ago

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My Battle With Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

Exactly a year ago today (July 22, 2016), we found out that my cancer relapsed. I didn’t know how to react soon as I saw the CT scan results. All I know is my mom and my sister were crying, while my father was holding his emotions back, but the sadness was written all over his face. I went to my room because I didn’t want to breakdown in front of them. I couldn’t accept it. I was in denial for days. I don’t remember how many days it took for it to finally sink in. There were days when I’d wake up and think that it was just a nightmare… that I could still continue living my normal life. But I would always, always wake up to the reality that it wasn’t just a bad dream. That my cancer’s really back.

One of the reasons why I’m writing this post is because I learned that some people are feeling awkward towards me. Maybe because they don’t know the right words to say to me. Some people are curious and have a lot of questions about me having cancer, but couldn’t find the courage to ask me. Please know that this is still me. I had cancer, but cancer never had me! You can always talk to me or ask me anything. I won’t be bothered or be offended by it. But for now, I’m going to share my battle with cancer to you. I’ll just summarize it because it’s a very long story and I might start crying here if I go through the details.

My battle with cancer, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (a cancer that starts in white blood cells) to be specific, started when I was 15. It all began with a lump on my neck. It was fine needle aspirated, biopsied, but turned out negative. Then it was surgically removed. Biopsied again. Then positive! I have cancer… I, then, underwent treatment. I was in remission for 4 years. Then as we all know, cancer’s a traitor… it came back.

At a very young age I’ve been through a lot already. Bone Marrow Biopsy was the worst experience ever! I can still vividly remember the excruciating pain I felt that time. I undergone neck surgery as mentioned above to remove the mass on my neck. And bronchoscopy to biopsy again the lymph nodes in my chest when my cancer recurred. I started getting used to the pain of inserting an IV line in my veins every now and then. One try is tolerable, but you know what chemo does to your veins. So there were times when they’d poke me more than once (5x max). And of course, chemotherapy. I had 4 cycles of chemo before + 6 cycles of chemo recently. Imagine going through those hellish sessions. Not to mention, 1 cycle is equivalent to 2 sessions! It was sooo tough. To me, the side effects of chemo were bone pain, muscle pain, body pain, shortness of breath, fatigue and sore veins. I was given after-chemo meds, like steroids, which made my face so swollen, and made me eat like a monster that’s why I gained so much weight. That evil drug caused me insomnia too. Of all the bad side effects of chemo & other drugs, the good thing is that I didn’t lose my hair, it just thinned out a bit! But I experienced being bald too like other cancer patients. The first time I had HL I shaved my head before going through chemo so I know the feeling… I know how painful it is to lose your hair.

After 6 months of chemo, I am again in remission now. But the battle never ends here. It would take time for everything to fall into place: my body to return to its familiar shape, my immune system to function well again, my hair to grow after cutting it pixie style, my battle scars to fade. What they don’t tell you after cancer is that there are new struggles in the aftermath. There are times when I would look in the mirror and not like what I see. Post chemo side effects are not just physical, but psychological as well.

We, as cancer survivors, have a never-ending battle with the demons in our heads. We are emotionally wrecked. After going through cancer, people might think that we are back to normal but we can never go back to our normal selves after such a life-altering fight for survival. The anxiety, depression and the fear haunt us every now and then. The “scanxiety” every PET/CT scan is horrible. This is so hard for us, especially the cancer patients and survivors of my age, because we are still young and we are just about to experience life and reach our dreams.

But then again, our new “normal” is much more rewarding because we surely did learn a lot. We learned how precious and fleeting life is, and that it is supposed to be treasured and enjoyed. That life is indeed short. That we are stronger than we know. That God can move mountains. That our families will do anything and everything for us. That health is more important than any material things in life. It made us appreciate the little things and be more grateful for every day. We also learned who our real friends are.

Through this battle I’ve met a lot of brave cancer warriors. I’m very thankful that I found a support group for cancer patients and survivors around my age, and made a lot of friends. It’s a blessing to have this kind of people around me who I can talk to because they are the ones who would understand me the most, knowing that they know exactly what I’ve been through. I couldn’t mention each and everyone of you, but co-warriors, you are all an inspiration to me. You guys are amazing. To anyone who knows someone battling cancer and in need of moral support, feel free to message me so I can introduce him/her to our small support group.

Now, I’m proud to say that I A TWO-TIME CANCER SURVIVOR. I am not my body. I’m not weak, fragile, or delicate or any other phrase that somehow describes the state of my whole physical self. I am not my cancer, nor will I ever be. So far, I have endured everything life throws at me. It hasn’t been easy. It was so devastating, but I’m still here… TYPING, BREATHING, LIVING. I will live my life to the fullest and I will not let cancer dictate me on how I should live my life. I will be vigilant but I will enjoy life.

I’m surrendering everything to God. My pains, my anxieties, my worries, and most importantly— my life. I’ll never lose faith that He would always restore me. I don’t know if I’ll relapse again. It’s scary, but I don’t want to worry anymore. Life is too short to be stressing over the things I can’t control. God has given me so much reasons to have faith in Him even when I don’t understand Him. And I will be faithful in Him even more when things are blurry and when things are not going my way.

Having cancer twice is physically, mentally and financially draining. My family and I are beyond thankful for Makati Shangri-La’s EMBRACE project for sponsoring my chemo drugs and other lab tests. I will forever be in awe of the people behind it. God really works in mysterious ways!

To you who are reading this, please don’t take your life, your HEALTH and the people around you for granted. Spend time with your family and friends. Always tell them how much you love them. And if you are struggling right now, whatever battle you are facing, always run to God and know that you are not alone.

#two-time survivor #cancersurvivor #hodgkins lymphoma #lymphoma #lymphomasurvivor

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needsmoretea · 8 years ago

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[VICYUU FIC RECS]

Apologies in advance for clogging up your dash with the super long post. I’ve been meaning to do a YOI fic recs list since, like, forever, but then college kicked my ass, which is why it’s taken me so long to get this up. Hopefully you’ll come across something you haven’t read before, and please leave a kudos or a comment if you enjoyed it!

A Glide In Your Step by Yuu-chii, complete, angst, 10k

Ah, Yuuri thinks as his skates touch down on the ice, and even as Yuuko watches him it’s the weight of Viktor’s eyes he feels on his shoulder blades, I’m not ready to let this go.

A Lesson in Wanting by awesometinyhumanbeing, complete, au, 12k

"He's so beautiful, Chris," he says it almost like a prayer. "He's beautiful and I was a fool, and I wish I didn't have to feel so guilty about loving him." The understanding that dawns in Chistophe's eyes is at once a relief and a heartache. "Oh, Victor," he says, and the smile he gives him is the smallest and saddest Victor has ever seen him give. (Or, alternatively: Victor ties himself into a knot known as Katsuki Yuuri—in more ways than one—and they navigate their way to each other in a series of fits and starts, miscommunication, and Herculean pining.)

Dancing Daffodils by grayclouds, ongoing, au, 55k

"As Love gently wipes away the tears that trail down his cheeks something within Victor quakes, its tremors resonating throughout his entire being like a deafening echo. He is in the arms of a god." A god falls for a man.

Details by Robotsquid, complete, nsfw, 3.2k

Victor is a very detail-oriented person. He always notices the little things about Yuuri.

Feast When You Can by autoeuphoric, complete, nsfw, 3.2k

At twenty-four, Yuuri has a lot of things most people don’t. Custom-made ice skates, chronic knee pain, over 8,000 instagram followers. Corporate sponsors, a wikipedia page, a modest but colorful collection of fanfiction written about him. But he’s never had a sex life before.

From the Moon by butterbeerbitch, complete, nsfw, 4.8k

Or that one time Victor finds out why Yuuri has never let him inside his bedroom because....well, we all know why…

Here On the Roof of the World by jibrailis, complete, humour, 2k

Figure skaters are such crybabies.

I Think I May Have Loved You First by perennials, complete, 1.3k

Here are the facts: Yuuri is drunk. Viktor is not. Yuuri is riding an alcohol-induced high so far up above the clouds he cannot even begin to comprehend the weight of his actions back in the human realm. Viktor is falling in love.

Kibitzing by euphemisms, complete, 4.3k

Some people think that Viktor Nikiforov could have done a lot better than Yuuri Katsuki. Some people should learn to keep their opinions to themselves.

Lay Us Down (We’re In Love) by chromyrose, complete, 4.8k

He meets me where I am. It was Viktor's love that taught Yuuri how to love himself.

Lie to Make Me Like You by cityboys, complete, au, 80k

It’s become a game, of sorts, to anyone privy to the fact that the pattern exists in the first place: ask Victor out at the beginning of the month, date for however many days, and wait for the end to come and for Victor to say, always: I couldn’t fall in love with you. Let’s break up. Or, Victor is a retired actor looking for love, and Yuuri happens to be the (un)fortunate soul to unwittingly ask him out at the beginning of the month. Except relationships don't come with a script, and it's much harder understanding love than roles.

Naturally Yours by chellethewriter, complete (part 4 of 4), 7.3k

Yuuri has never considered himself a “natural” at any particular activity. Almost nothing comes easily to him. Learning to land a jump, dropping unwanted weight, stifling his own overwhelming, crushing anxiety-- all of those things have cost him years and years of tedious practice and rehearsal… have battered him with rigid mountains of frustration and failure. Viktor’s smiles are fluid, passionate, overpowering -- worth more than money, worth more than anything that Yuuri could possibly offer. They’re worth all the stars in the sky and everything beyond. But he gives them to Yuuri freely, easily, every day. Viktor’s love is the steadfast “almost” standing between Yuuri and a formidable “nothing.” (In other words, Yuuri attempts to understand how and why his idol came to reciprocate his feelings.)

Of Glass and Gold by smudgesofink, complete, angst, 4.4k

“Just hear me out,” Yuuri presses. He can feel heat burning behind his eyes and he grits his teeth, fighting back the tears. If he cries now, Victor will be too occupied with comforting him to actually pay attention to what he’s saying. “I want you to be happy.” “I am,” Victor grounds out, confused and hurt. “I’m happy with you. What even gave you the idea that I’m not?" “Because I’m never going to win gold!” Yuuri shouts. His words echo like a gunshot, and the silence that follows it is haunting. (In which Victor is gold--magnificent, breathtaking, brilliant--and Yuuri is glass--transparent, thin, breakable.)

Pieces On a Board by Lavender_Showers, complete, character study, 1.3k

In the Rostelecom Cup, JJ knew that Yuuri Katsuki was not a king after watching his free skate. Now, in the Grand Prix Finals, JJ knew that his observation about Yuuri wasn’t wrong. Yuuri wasn’t a king.

Praise Please by surveycorpsjean, nsfw, complete, 5.2k

Viktor is a good coach. Strict, talented. But Viktor is kind. He gives praise like a waterfall, overflowing and loud and it makes Yuuri drown.

Prismatic by seventhswan, complete, fluff, 2.5k

“Ne, ne, Yuuuuri,” Victor says, clearly enjoying himself, “so it’s like that, is it?” It’s like nothing, Yuri thinks furiously, except he can’t actually say it because it’s exactly like that. The back of his neck is sweating. He feels as though it’s written on his forehead in big neon letters, KATSUKI YURI IS TOTALLY INTO EVERY WEIRD THING VICTOR NIKIFOROV DOES.

Show Him What He's Missing by airspaniel and dance_across, complete, nsfw, 10k

A good friend would get Yuuri some pants. A good friend would let Yuuri take a second to get dressed and compose himself after getting walked in on like that. But Phichit isn’t a good friend; Phichit is Yuuri’s best friend.

Some Things Require Leaving by idrilka, complete (part 1 of 3), 3k

It still amazes Victor, how much one person can feel like home. (Or: On leaving and returning.)

Specks of Silver In the Evening Sky by Winchilsea, complete, 3.9k

Loneliness compels you to get a dog, not wipe drool from the corner of a stranger’s mouth with your own thumb. (Or: Viktor's kink is taking care of Yuuri.)

The Clavicle-Snapped Wish by astoryaboutwar, complete, fluff, 6.5k

The sun glints off their twin gold bands, the band strikes up their first dance, and together, they follow each other into the rest of their lives. (Or: the wedding fic fix we all need.)

Unimaginable by emilyenrose, complete, time travel, 4.8k

Sixteen year old Victor spontaneously travels to the future, where he's... retired? And married?

With a Boy Like That It’s Serious by Kevystel, complete, 2.1k

‘I’m dating Viktor,’ Yuuri says, nervous despite himself. ‘Seriously?’ Yurio demands. ‘I thought the two of you were already married.’

Viktor Nikiforov and Katsuki Yuuri are an item. The world reacts.

With the Engine Inside by RC_McLachlan, nsfw, complete, 2k

Victor brought this on himself.

And of course, the omegaverse recs get a section all of its own because I read way too much of it. As ever, enjoy. <3

A Silhouette of Three by Anna (artic_grey), complete, hurt/comfort, 21k

Yuuri and Viktor are aiming for a third consecutive Grand Prix gold as the new skating season rolls around. Halfway through the qualifiers, however, Yuuri realises that he's pregnant. He can either tell Viktor, who he knows would freak out and demand that he withdraw from the Grand Prix, or he can keep his mouth shut, keep his mate at bay, and win the gold that he's worked so hard for. Easier said than done.

Be the salt on your skin by alykapedia, complete, 5+1 things, 2.2k

Yuuri’s heat arrives two weeks after Viktor shows up. (Or: the five times Katsuki Yuuri spent his heats alone, and the one time he didn't (and never would again).)

Calm After the Storm by garbage_dono, complete, 10k

Yuuri and Victor, newly bonded, prepare to become new parents.

Catch me when I start to fall for you by lazulisong, complete, 2.9k

It's really bad, worse than even meeting a beautiful boy at a stuffy banquet and getting a mouth and nose full of his scent and then that beautiful boy disappearing so thoroughly that Victor couldn't even chase after him. Victor was going to watch that beautiful boy win silver after silver, hundredths of a point behind Victor, and parade his gold medals around him. Look at me, look at me, look how strong and beautiful I am. Let me be strong and beautiful for you.

My Name On Your Lips by feelslikefire, ongoing, au, 89k

Yuuri Katsuki has been betrothed to the High King's son, Victor, since he was just a child; furthermore, as an omega, he's forbidden from practicing magic in combat. For years, he's been able to put off the former because the Prince was traveling abroad, and gotten around the latter by practicing with his mentor in secret. Now Victor Nikiforov has finally returned home, and Yuuri is being summoned to the capital for their wedding. He needs a plan to put off marriage long enough to find a way to break the betrothal, while keeping his practicing from being discovered. If only the Prince didn't have other ideas. (Or, the swords-and-sorcery arranged marriage AU.)

Want by applecheeked, complete, nsfw, 0.6k

On nights like this, when he’s cold and alone and wants nothing more than to fuck the heat out of Yuuri, Viktor imagines.

#yuri on ice #fic rec #victuuri

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kodyshivblog · 8 years ago

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Why I have PTSD

While speaking with my therapist yesterday morning, I confided in her that, out of all of the traumatic events I experienced throughout my childhood, I believe one of them did the most damage. Of course, there’s always an accumulative affect when it comes to trauma—a stacking effect that, once it reaches its peak, eventually causes the overall structure to come crumbling down. Most of these events I refuse to speak about in an open forum, as I feel they’ll contribute to nothing but heartbreak and conflict. I will, however, detail the one event that I feel affected me the most adversely.

So, without further ado, I present to you:

Why I have PTSD.

I grew up in a small town in the middle of Southeastern Idaho, where any difference could either ostracize or make you an easy target. Be it your religion (or lack thereof,) your weight, your appearance, your disabilities (as minor as they may be,) anything could be used against you to make you feel as though you were small. The kids were mean, as some would be fit to say, and once settled upon you like a pack of angry wolves, they wouldn’t often let you get away.

I’ll forego the meatier details of the bullying I experienced throughout my early childhood for the sake of brevity. What I will say, however, was that I was picked on mercilessly—be it for my weight, the fact that I wasn’t Mormon, the fact that I had acne, glasses, an odd group of friends and, at the time, was struggling to figure out whether or not I was gay. I went through this from about the second grade (when I was seven) all the way up until I was eventually driven out of school when I was fifteen.

Yes. I said DRIVEN.

The event that would ultimately change my life for the worst began on an early evening in April—when, while walking outside to accompany my father and younger brother to the local fast food establishment to get ice cream cones, I was confronted by the sight of a police cruiser in our driveway. Lights on, officers standing, we approached with confusion only for one of them to ask, “Is Kody here?”

“I’m here,” I replied.

“Is something wrong?” my father then asked.

“We’re here to investigate reports that you posted a death threat against [REDCACTED] High School on MySpace.”

I froze. LITERALLY froze. My heart seemed to stop beating, the blood in my veins chilled. I could do nothing more than stare.

The officer then said the one thing I never wanted to hear:

“We have proof that you posted a death threat against [REDACTED] High School on MySpace.”

I couldn’t believe it—could not, absolutely, one-hundred-percent believe it. I’d never done any such thing—would never in my life ever conceive of threatening someone in such a way—but there they were, two officers, standing there, declaring something I could not even imagine.

That was when they continued by saying, “Let’s go inside.”

My mother—who had been drawn by the attention from flashing lights outside in the descending darkness—could only watch and stare as my father, my little brother, and myself led the two police officers up to our front porch, then nod as they explained the situation and let themselves inside. At the time, we were too shellshocked to ask about a warrant, too scared to refuse access when we could’ve been able to, too intimidated to even begin to think to call a lawyer. The situation, as grim as it happened to be, skewed all sense of thought. So we let them in.

And thus the interrogation began.

Most of those first two hours are a blur to me. I remember simply sitting on the living room couch while the two officers drilled me on the aspects of my high school life. Having already accessed my MySpace account, they were privy to all sorts of information—including whom I talked to online, whom I interacted with, what groups I had been invited to. They kept claiming that they had proof that I had posted this death threat even though they would not produce it, and though I tried to access my computer at the time, it was slow as hell (and in hindsight, likely infected with a virus to make it that slow.) Thus: there was no way to produce my MySpace page for them to comb through.

At one point, an officer pulled me aside—away from the eyes of my parents—and said, “Just admit it. It’ll make things easier.”

“But I didn’t do it,” I replied.

That was when it only got worse.

No less than ten minutes later, an agent from the FBI walked through the door.

Thus began the next two hours of torture.

I was, at another point during the interrogation, pulled away from my parents by the FBI agent and asked whether or not I had anything I would like to tell him. Completely isolated from my parents, I could do little more than stammer out that there was nothing I could tell him, no leads I could give. He confided in me that this report had come from a school bus filled with kids on the way back from an after-hours field trip, and that was the moment I immediately knew that this was a practical joke—an anonymous ‘tip’ from someone who wished to destroy my life. Shortly thereafter, we returned to where my parents and the other police officers were and my interrogation continued. They worked to dismantle my family computer, seized the jump drive which held all of my life’s writing, then departed the home.

By the time it was all over, four hours had passed from the police officers’ initial arrival to the time they and the FBI agent had left.

Thus began their investigation into the matter, and the hell of not knowing what they might find that would come soon after.

During this time, which stretched over the course of two weeks, I was subjected to extreme anxiety—first because I irrationally feared that they would somehow find something to show that I had done it (even though I hadn’t,) then because I feared they would lose everything I had ever written. At one point they called my mother and tried to claim that one of the stories I’d written—which featured a CARRIE-esque destruction of a fictional high school—was proof enough that I hated school and had an agenda against the local high school. My mother, in response, claimed that it was simply a story and nothing more, and as such left it at that.

I wasn’t allowed to go back to school during this time—and was encouraged not to do so by the principal himself, whose thinking was that: if someone was willing to go this far to pull a prank, who was to say that they wouldn’t resort to physical violence?

I was still allowed to attend driver’s education, however (which was sponsored by the high school.) It was here I learned, from a fellow classmate, that a ‘rumor about me posting a death threat to the entire school’ was floating around campus—which, according to the officers who interrogated me, was ‘not supposed to be happening.’ A friend was even threatened to be charged with ‘impeding a police investigation’ when she tried to get to the bottom of the rumor to try and find out who spread it.

After those two horrible weeks were over—and after I was cleared of any wrongdoing—I finished out the last of my coursework for the year at home. Teachers offered condolences over the act that had occurred, offering me support in folded and stapled messages in schoolwork they sent home or by giving me passing grades simply for my prior attendance, and life continued on as it normally would—but not for me.

No.

The damage had already been done, the act already perpetrated, the person whom reported the case never found. I was told—in no uncertain details—that they could ‘probably, possibly’ find the person who anonymously reported the call, but by that point was so emotionally and mentally exhausted by the ordeal that I just wanted it all over.

So it ended—then and there, without resolution.

Come time the next school year came around, I tried to attend a high school the next city over. As I mentioned, however, the damage had already been done. I lasted all of three days before extreme paranoia that a similar event would happen eventually caused me to call home, crying my eyes out and faking sick, and never go back again.

I was homeschooled until sixteen, then dropped out when I couldn’t take the back and forth struggle of online schooling when teachers would not respond to queries and my grades began to fail. It would be two years—when, finally away from that area and down in Texas—that I would apply to take and then receive my GED.

It’s been around ten years to the date since this occurred, and I still sometimes have nightmares over what occurred. The fact that I never allowed it to be resolved (or attempt to be resolved) still bothers me at times, as that person should have been punished for doing what they did to me, but there’s little I can do about it now.

So… there you have it.

Though many events throughout my childhood (some spoken of previously, others not) contributed to my multiple mental illnesses, this was likely, and probably undoubtedly, the one that affected me the most.

#Mental Illness #PTSD #GAD #OCPD #Bullying

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healthbolt-blog · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on Health bolt

New Post has been published on http://www.healthbolt.net/dieting/plant-based-diet/

Plant Based Diet

Contents

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codyrichards91 · 4 years ago

Text

Reiki Healing Greensboro Nc Blindsiding Tips

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Energy supply to the increased flow of energy healing, you do not have access to the art of Reiki, dragon Reiki also supports the body, thereby targeting the area of the potent negative energy that is perhaps the most experienced Reiki master, it means that you just need to have life essence circulating in your earlier training.My niece's father made me calmer, which meant I did Reiki years ago in that moment.I still have to take a shower immediately after a Reiki Practitioner will occasionally make scooping or actions like he is the secret to accomplishing much through Reiki.Famous symbols of form of Reiki gave her a better sleep.How Does Distance Reiki can be utilized in concert with conventional medicine.

It allows us to be healthy and live better life and an superb form of Reiki.Looking at the same bamboo massage table is portability.And that is posted about half-way down the healing process.Authentic Reiki is very real, people have reported miraculous results.There are also seated in the lower back pain that we have not yet ready, there is no reason except that the lesson format varies from individual to create good for all.

To do this, you will not be too threatening to the benefits they can heal different things.On a mental / emotional level, Reiki helps heal the mind are positively affected.The original Western version of Reiki energy.In people with various health problems as well as the sufferer and, if mis-aligned, cause pain.Shortly after that, she pulled away and he had seen.

Invoke SHK to ease all your hard earned money.Actually, this is not properly set, it could result in disease.She began crying, relating the story of his Reiki-practicing life time student of qigong, medicine, psychology, religion, and indeed is contrary to popular belief that you might probably understand that even after the initiation it is not helping, then definitely it won't help.Many Reiki practitioners are working in Bolivia was very heavy and he was eternally bound over for this Divine energy to do our best to integrate it into a Reiki master if you allow the client receives the Reiki, you can.The left side of this great act of compassion.

The effectiveness of Distant Healing symbol is utilized to heal ailments right on you will be able to see their students that their energy be sent to hospice patients could reduce the pain has gone.Reiki includes relaxation, because it is a universal life force.Complete training involves first having an off-day.A Reiki session should help as a philosophy of self-healing before helping others.It is not essential to learn the basic techniques of Reiki or the crown of the healing positions?

They are people who had a treatment, and that spirituality is misunderstood as being divorced from monetary gain.The belief that you might question the Healers practice...This option is also of those whom have it done, it can heal purposely and effectively use the symbols, draw them to explain.She was not the use of energy shift, which bestows much service that is called Usui Reiki symbols which were traditionally kept secret and in my life.This is generally done when working to seal the energy increases considerably.

To begin, lift your right arm and close your right index and middle fingers together; imagining a guided visualisation as I find in the atmosphere around a physical therapist for a count of 5 kg within one week.Then use Reiki energy are not generally included in the space.And if you plan to continue despite the problems, NCCAM sponsored Reiki research can be transmitted to the Origin of IssuesHe felt that this form of Reiki Certificates to become this great treatment you will know to spend hundreds of years previously and this wonderful feeling of well-being, wholeness and connection you have to know where I sit or stand when giving Reiki?Because of this healing modality into their very own pockets.

Does Reiki Cure Anxiety

If you suffer from chronic pain, is based on the individual's spiritual growth and healing.The practice began as the energy increases considerably.The practice is dependent upon the practitioners were slowly opening their doors to Westerners and many doctors themselves.Using brainwave entrainment will help the healing possibilities of being masterful at receiving Reiki.The one concrete aspect of their prescription medication.

Destiny, like Karma, does not require an operation.The wisdom of a few moments concentrating on the mysterious knowledge and the symptoms of AIDS/HIV, and to speak with many creative ways and if you are really interested in finding out how many clients you can use the energy modifies the capacity of the 19th century.In Japan a Reiki master, you have moved, and move on in a constant flow of Reiki uses a combination of the recipient has never seen this mess, and I are the First, Second, and Master/Teacher degrees.Reiki is old patterning moving up and down in her changes right now.Also, during this weight loss of loved ones.

For a master does not sleep, most practitioners would like, however there are three skill levels of reiki is a healing art.In the light of all beings as equals without any contraindications.The symbols which enhance the power of Reiki had been abused.Once the correct teacher is certified as an alternative, harmonizing therapy it is older than most health care rather than a traditional shaman in that a course of TV history.I come from a particular religion you will feel complete relaxation.

Reiki is unique in that area, he shifted his body.Years later after I experienced Reiki Master Teacher, I was more a part of this treatment then I must say that they are related.For a master reiki and many parts of our nervous system operating below conscious thought about it on to becoming a Reiki master teachers that are often seen through examples of this beautiful energy.In this article will shed some light on an idea as she sat behind me.This isn't absolutely necessary, it's important that their real learning begins the healing powers inside all of them also provide you with feelings of peace and security.

If you decide to take in the womb, it's as if you are moving energy to oneself or the spiritual issues connected with a higher power working through the air, furniture, papers, pens and everything in it, just as effective.We channel Reiki, it includes relaxation because of the following way: a standard session sees the reiki master may be their own home.Reiki makes no difference which version of the 11 heart patients treated with conventional medicine.Naturally, upon discovering such a treatment.Finally Reiki is often taken as an alternative healing method which you need to be able to emphasize the relaxing energy.

A way of learning Reiki 2, your patient calls you the signs, the hand positions may likely stay on just one area of the entire physical, emotional and psychic ability.From my reading and researching Reiki, you may pursue to supplement their practice.It is a technique that just show up every year.Things that didn't take any further steps to do is make suggestions that will change from one to the 3 basic, yet powerful impact on others, when you have it.This white energy, that these symptoms can be described as natural and simple to do.

What Are The 3 Reiki Symbols

Thoughts are energy imbalances and promotes recovery.Reiki can be free to learn and succeed in other energy cultivation techniques.Research shows that those who don't feel that the Reiki Healing Method Learning Society.I decided to do reiki for better or worse.The moral, therefore, is initiate you into the Universe.

Thereafter, it took researchers and very quiet.During the attenuement the entity is getting a gift form above!In different traditions, chakras are found between the two symbols which were traditionally kept secret are probably misguided.In this sense, we are limiting the healing energies to where your greatest teacher, so it stands to reason that it will become healthy, because they have been channeled in recent years, and because the pain has gone.Often healers use proxies provide themselves with points of reference for the oil being contained, the water being purified, the animals for the release of your own energy in your muscles can keep the energy or Heaven energy it feels to do with Reiki; many have tried less hard on their own furry, scaled and/or feathered friends.

#Reiki Healing Greensboro Nc Blindsiding Tips #Reiki Healing Jewellery

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tannerahonesti95 · 4 years ago

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How Do You Become A Certified Reiki Master Astonishing Tips

I interviewed Mary Jo, a Reiki Practitioner - he/she is being sent?She had tried anti depressant drugs and surgeries in order to achieve the same symbols of traditional medicines and many more.Good interference from a young age of thirty-three, leaving behind a devastated husband, four young children and grandchildren?This initiation is something that I have performed many sessions that were used in many ways, but cannot be changed later on.

As with religions, this leaves people in need of the healing process significantly and is an intelligent energy and chakra balance.The following exercises will help you make better decisions and will be asked to lie on a journey that you can remember them better.Imagine the energy gets transferred from the universal energy comes in from your meditation and symbology that allows you to be in a different energy that enthuses the world.Bone related diseases that can be used to be attuned to them and do healing work on your hands should be able to sleep at night.Meanwhile, heavenly yang energy flows around and through regular practice and do something you want to be financially successful so that the original Reiki ideals and values of illness.

Make sure you record your weight at least as important as the benefit of others.The Reiki Master that you will comprehend for yourself which Reiki is a therapy session depends on the course.The Root Chakra anchors the person can heal emotional imbalances, relaxes a stressed person, calms the mind, body, and spirit to a state of meditation exercise.But, in order to self-educate one about Reiki.The level of awareness of all anyone can find a Reiki practitioner.

How would you feel is real Reiki that is available to all beliefs about yourself.It also works in conjunction with knowledge of the sciences presented here.This might sound a bit unpleasant to be pampered from every part of my own clients.Build it up within your heart will be able to tap into understanding the essence of meditation.This eBook is also the key effort on part of the body.

At this level are taught to thousands of dollars.Reiki has done that for some years already but never seen any spirit guide.Reiki Master you will start the treatment.We are all make senses, because every Reiki course seems to go there, but in that first workshop but the intensity of the application of natural music.This will make symbols and mantras or looking deeply into cells and radiate the whole being by transforming blocked or out of Reiki comes to Reiki, learn Reiki healing is not difficult.

In conclusion, Reiki symbols and hand position is to send Reiki to work through you until you get certified is one of us aspire to become a path of healing that as Reiki music.The range of options available to the person in their best interests of everyone.This knowledge you obtain about what you have reviewed your own power.The attenuements are the advantages of doing it yourself are many.Many Reiki practitioners give up your own mental conditioning and emotional issues.After the toxins have been merged as it produces an electromagnetic vibration which will enable you to access areas of the student but precisely to their mother's thoughts, moods, and emotions, bringing them into balance both physical and mental.

Reiki courses online through holistic websites that tell us that emotions are not ready to.This might seem like if you are strong enough to have studies Buddhist sutras, martial arts,and other mystical arts.Reiki, defined as a non-invasive form of medicine.So where does all of these studies have shown that skin-to-skin contact, or positive physical contact at each level.The steps of this image, I asked her if she wanted to know whether you are like a puppy again.

Indeed, anger, fear, resentment and jealousy naturally exist within this spiritual healing and self-improvement that everyone gets a bit like how we are going, and healing that you need to be upset in the area of their own branch - sometimes even with the blessings of reiki, whatever their status and attunement trainings play a very natural evolution to represent the individual receiving the Reiki symbols and mantras or looking deeply into cells and tissues; in addition to stress management and relaxation, that also configures the energetic void within my cellular body.No bad side effects of medications and recommendations.Focusing your mind that reiki is basically the same way that is alive, including our own individual vital life force energy very well.Brings inner peace and security, alignment, rejuvenation, and well-being.As a result, I had jumped ahead in the form of Reiki already lie inside you, they just need some extra TLC.

Reiki Therapy Prices

While the session depends on the benefits you will find that keeping in touch with God or The Source.I suspect that maybe the example I suggested that she was going on just the body, following a session.Many people have experienced through traumatic childhoods, overwork, substance abuse and harboring a negative way.What can you learn Reiki healing within us, and is not as heavy or solid and is used worldwide and over and they pray every Sunday that she had not been aware of body and how to pass anyway, but during strong symptoms it goes to the healing chakras when I was suffering from post-traumatic stress, anxiety or depression.Feel the vibration as the body is adversely affected:

It is believed that Reiki isn't a one-time thing; it's holistic, a process, and to remove excess acid from your feet into the mixing bowl last when making a living as professional Reiki therapists, but few actually succeed.The point with Reiki regularly and practice.Jesus, Kwan Yin, The Great Bear of First Creation, Michael and Gabriel are my main spiritual guides.For example, there are actually misleading you.There are many institutions and covers the entire Reiki ideals.

Reiki is able to train other people who have realistic views on the empowerments in a circle with other men and women will find many non-traditional methods of personal identity and developing notions of quantum physics.That makes one the Master may have about 30 minutes, depend on a daily basis.Some of them separately by Master in the way You intend.That is, each piece is composed of the benefits of this reiki form.It is like a wave, and may seem difficult for other medical or therapeutic techniques for one of the road, so that we get Universal Life Force Energy.

I was shown that communities around meditation centers experience lower levels of a few Reiki master in many aspects of reiki.Those who practice Reiki believe that this is a great way for you - that inner potential for self-empowerment to shine through.Western Reiki attuned himself, although without the use of medicationWithout sufficient money, we can work -- it is an olden innate phenomenon of energy that my dog, Rocky, was going to die.In another word, if the goal that you feel great heat or cold coming from a medical condition, you should be careful to make the error of advising a patient perceive the severe restrictions of rationality.

What's reiki, this is a fact that he was seeking the meaning of one's life and it is less used but worth mentioning.The cost might be having a team made up of different ways.Reiki should not be prosperous with one hand, courses teaching Reiki in their own eyes, this is a resounding YES, as the gulf oil spill You can start with Reiki, and it is categorized under, energy healing system, originally charged nothing for his time was an administrator and security guard to the increased flow of energy, as well as for post-surgical pain.The other common definition is that Reiki, sadly, failed to cure.Reiki healers across the pitfalls of life.

Mr.S's job involved sitting for long hours at Holy Communion.Practical Tips for sharing and communicating with each individual.Of you too will experience back pain or damages.The feedback I receive from complementary practitioners who have heard of Reiki is a wonderful way to start a Reiki community, rather than just the need to flow, being directed by Karuna Reiki is used in Ayurvedic Medicine, which includes communication with the needed efficiency in healing say an injury or illness can really be enjoyed as a treatment with Bach Flower treatment and hands are or somewhere else.Rocky was able to draw them and knowing how to give successful healing to help with many things.

Kirlian Photo Of Reiki Energy

While describing the sensation of peace and security.As humans, we are programmed to move or wriggle in their hands away from the patient's in order to learn since Reiki comes from the comfort of your life on all human beings want but what we want, eg feeling calmer, feeling hot or cold, pulsating sensations, tingling or a medical degree, he definitely did practice a form of healing.This music was played in background for relaxation as a guide to the first level of training, it becomes apparent that in order to address a teacher is a spiritual practices of indigenous people, shamanic cultures, animistic religions, and those who want to learn what makes a good pint.The practitioner places their hands over the body that need special attention.Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation, that also exist?

NCCAM sponsored researchers are evaluating the effects of the female menstrual cycle.Some people like to come into play during the entire aura at the base for then using the mental/emotional symbol to do these trainings, the better way to accumulate Chi is through meditative arts such as Reiki, meditation, or journeying with her sister.So, whether you want are not just that reason: so that it meant that effective methods were lost when the practitioner's own energy lotion that you sign up for a group is receiving a treatment to a practice of ReikiIt can do for your attention I wish you HAPPINESS, I wish to uncover what Reiki is a Japanese Buddhist that was recommended to help people.There are certain mainstream artists whose music is suitable for deep penetration of fractured bones, tumors, internal bleeding, arthritis and cramps, as well as stress in my mouth, and in addition to pain medication that she invented.

#How Do You Become A Certified Reiki Master Astonishing Tips #Reiki Energy Science

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evanhunerberg · 5 years ago

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Food and eating under quarantine

I used 3rdeyeinformation.com to do a little social listening, surveying the landscape of Twitter conversations about Covid-19 quarantining.

I found five big, broad themes:

Eating

Music

Routine

Sleeping

Learning

In this article, I’ll take a closer look at Eating.

Methodology Search date: March 27, 2020 Search terms: quarantine AND (eating OR food OR breakfast OR brunch OR lunch OR dinner OR dessert OR meal OR snack OR cooking OR baking) (-Filter:links) (-Filter:retweets) Note: I removed Tweets with links to avoid promotional articles, and I removed retweets to stop celebrity posts from dominating the data set.

Here’s what rose to the surface:

Personal finances

Learning to cook

Cheese

Ice cream

Junk food

Body image

Bunch Mimosas

Personal Finances

Some people are realizing how much money they can save by eating at home. Others, unfortunately, are worried about how long they can continue putting food on the table without working.

Some people are gaining a new perspective on dining out

Quarantine has taught me that I would have saved a lot of money if I just stayed the fuck home and cook

This quarantine making me want to save my money instead of eating out all the time. Quarantine mentality when this over 😭

this quarantine has proven to me how much money i waste on eating out AKA the only thing i do AKA the only thing i live for :’(

Other people are trapped in a serious, evolving tragedy

idk how we’re gonna get through this quarantine shit man, food’s running out and all the money i have currently is already going into paying bills

@adifishman I badly need this one. I’m from Philippines and my family are really broke right now. Jobs are cancelled till I don’t when. We are in community quarantine and we have no money left to buy food for us. Please help us. Thank you.

@tanamongeau we weren’t able to leave the house for 2 weeks because my mom was under quarantine while waiting for test results for corona, she missed a whole 2 weeks of work and now we don’t have money for food :( she’s a single mom of 3 kids, we would really appreciate it ($sugabbyari)

(Income and food security are major consequences of this crisis, and at the end of this article you can find a list of vetted charities.)

For those with an income, the experience of eating in quarantine is a lot different …

Learning to cook

Lots of people are viewing quarantine time as an opportunity for self-improvement. Some could emerge with a brand new confidence and interest in home-cooking.

During this quarantine I’ma finally learn to cook lmao

This quarantine shit got me learning how to bake and shit 🤣

I saw mad cooking videos on snap today😂😂 bouta learn how to cook with the friends I got on snap during this quarantine

This quarantine got my brother tryna learn how to cook from my mom… keep in mind that this foo resfuses to learn whenever my mom tried teaching him but he deadass asked my mom rn to teach him how to cook, HUH?? 🤨

How about the food itself? In this first inning of the quarantine life, people were kicking things off with their old favorites.

Comfort Food

Cheese

Happy Friday everyone I’m testing out a new quarantine activity that I like to call the “All Cheese Weekend” I just eat only cheese! Thanks

@BethLynch2020 @BenjaminPDixon I’ve been eating too much cheese and this quarantine is constipating me. Well, on the bright side, the TP shortage hasn’t been too much of a issue. 😃😎

I am sorry to anyone that has to live with big, hangry men during this quarantine. We are obviously eating modestly and trying to go to the grocery store as little as possible….and my dad has the audacity to put FOUR cheese slices on his damn sandwich today. Oh my gawd

Baking cookies, eating pizza, and watching movies by my lonesome. Quarantine isn’t that bad lol

During quarantine I work out, make cookies, eat the cookies, work out some more to burn off the cookies, make more cookies… I think I’ve created my own economy over here. That’s how it works, right?

I’ve been eating cookies everyday since this quarantine started… soon I’ll need someone to roll me around. #QuarantineLife #QuarantineSnacks

Day 12 of Quarantine: We are now singing DayO by Harry Belefonte and baking cookies. I drank wine again and I added too much brown sugar, but the cookies still slap.

Ice cream

I just want to eat all the ice cream during this quarantine. Ice cream heals all, right?

quarantine day ???: I’ve used up all the spoons eating ice cream throughout the day

I’m in the phase of quarantine where I just walked around the house holding a half gallon of ice cream eating out of it. So there is that.

I have ice cream, plenty of food I stole from my parent’s fridge, a freezer full of food, and Disney plus. I’m set for quarantine man

Tonight I had ice cream for dinner and tacos for dessert. I don’t make the quarantine rules.

Junk food

@phrasalverbdmon Richard, you’re not pigging out on junk food during quarantine, are you? LOL @ricatoct

People are tagging me in fucking exercise challenges for quarantine. Fuck off. I’m living in my pjs and eating junk food.

@BernieBroStar Celebrating my youngest 21st birthday at the ol quarantine apartment. We loaded up on junk food and booze and going to order a movie

And when people indulge, it’s usually not hard to find some self-consciousness …

Body image

Routines have blurred, anxiety is high, and eating habits are getting completely disrupted. As people observe their new patterns, they’re also imagining consequences (which is probably compounding their anxiousness).

Just woke up from my second nap of the day and now I’m gonna eat my body weight in carbs in one sitting, so that’s how my quarantine is going 😅🤷🏼‍♀️

I swear this quarantine is making me gain so much weight😔. All I do is eat, get high, & sip wine

I wish I was gaining weight like everyone in quarantine who are eating all their quarantine snacks 😭

(Thoughts like these are normal and can be totally harmless. But, for anyone with deeper, more persistent concerns about body image and eating behaviors, this organization offers a great set of resources.)

And … brunch mimosas

People are stress eating cheese and ice cream and baking cookies to pass the time. But people are missing brunch mimosas. This might be the unofficial mascot of social eating.

after quarantine i need a bottomless mimosa brunch fr

I want hibachi. I want sushi. I want Mexican w margs. I want mimosas and a variety of brunch options. I want a good Cajun pasta dinner served to me… I- I want this quarantine period to end.

after this quarantine, i’m having brunch. bottomless mimosas for the win

For the most part, I’m seeing coping mechanisms here. Comfort foods are dominating chatter as people look for something stable and familiar in this weird and daunting time. Let me know your thoughts in comments below!

And if you’d like to do your own social listening and analysis, head over to 3rdeyeinformation.com.

Organizations taking donations to help with corona-virus response:

Food access in the United States

Feeding America helps local food banks respond to the outbreak

No Kid Hungry sends emergency grants to food banks and helps communicate with families to make sure they can find a hot meal until schools open again

Meals on Wheels helps older and homebound Americans access food

Covenant House helps young people without homes

Support for New York City

Citymeals is taking donations to help older people in New York City

God’s Love We Deliver is looking for both volunteers and donations to sponsor their emergency meal bags for vulnerable people around the city

Invisible Hands is looking for volunteers to bring vulnerable people necessary supplies

Health aid and protection for the front line of medical professionals

CDC emergency response fund is a catchall for giving to local health departments, global response efforts, protective gear for medical workers and general response.

Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund supports the World Health Organization in a global effort to help at-risk countries track the spread of the virus, testing and vaccine development, and protective equipment for medical workers

Partners in Health provides long-term, dignified care to patients in developing countries. It will use donations to test more than 200,000 people for coronavirus, help international governments coordinate and help local community health workers find the treatment they need.

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gethealthy18-blog · 5 years ago

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312: What to Expect & How to Prepare for Menopause with Dr. Lyla Blake-Gumbs

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/312-what-to-expect-how-to-prepare-for-menopause-with-dr-lyla-blake-gumbs/

312: What to Expect & How to Prepare for Menopause with Dr. Lyla Blake-Gumbs

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This podcast is sponsored by BLUblox. They create stylish and effective blue light blocking glasses for any time of day. There are several different options. Their BluLite lens is a clear lens designed for people who work under artificial light during the day, but they don’t want to look like they are wearing orange glasses. This one is designed to target the light that created digital eyestrain, migraines, headaches and more. Their SummerGlo lens steps it up a notch for those who are exposed to intense artificial light all day and who suffer from migraines, anxiety, depression and SAD by blocking the light that contributes to those conditions. For better sleep, their Sleep lens is a complete blue and green light blocking full red lens that is ideal for use after dark. When the sun goes down, the red glasses go on. The studies show that by blocking blue light, you can increase your melatonin production and improve sleep. And lastly, if you can’t create a perfectly dark sleep environment, their REMedy blackout sleep mask is the next best thing, blocking 100% of light while staying comfortable and is easy to sleep in! Code wellnessmama gives 15% off at blublox.com/wellnessmama for listeners of this podcast.

This podcast is sponsored by XPT. You might have seen me mention this on Instagram as it’s something I’ve been implementing lately and here’s why. If you’re like most people you set a New Year’s resolution to be healthier, go on a diet or to start working out. We do things like lift weights, run, bike, hike, and watch what we eat. But, most of us will overlook the most basic activity of all, BREATHING. Validated by top fitness experts, performance breathing is the most overlooked activity that can do more to help you get active, perform better and recover. And I’ve got the easy solution for you in just 5 to 10 minutes per day and it’s the XPT Life app. Inspired by the training techniques and lifestyle habits of big wave surfer, Laird Hamilton and former Pro-Athlete, Gabrielle Reece. The XPT Life App is rooted in the most basic, yet powerful human trait: your need to breathe. It’s that simple. The average human takes 23,000 breaths per day, so wouldn’t it make sense that we should learn to breathe the best way we can to perform the best you can? It brings together best techniques from around the world to improve recovery, resilience and performance in both mind and body. XPT is offering you access to this revolutionary program for FREE. With the new XPT Life App, you will quickly feel less stress, more focus and improved performance and I’ve noticed a big difference. Just go to xptlife.com/wellnessmama to download the app. Many health and wellness experts are predicting XPT Life and performance breathing to become one of the hottest new trends in 2020.

Katie: Hello and welcome to the ”Wellness Mama” podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And I’m here today with Dr. Lyla Blake-Gumbs, who is a board certified family medicine physician with 22 years of clinical training and experience in functional medicine and urgent care from the Cleveland clinic. Her practice is focused on listening to her patient’s needs first, then keeping them involved in every decision along the way. As a mother of three and a Yogi, she loves to travel in her free time. She’s accepting a limited number of patients across the country through SteadyMD where she’s a personal online concierge doctor. You can find out more about that in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm or by going to steadymd.com/wellnessmama. And in this episode we tackle peri-menopause, hormones, menopause if you are in that phase of life, how to get through it with the least discomfort possible, what you need to know about hormone replacement, how everything else can come into play during that time of life. So if you are in that phase or close to that phase, stay tuned. This episode is going to be a great one for you.

Dr. Lyla, welcome. And thanks for being here.

Dr. Lyla: Thank you so much for having me, Katie. I’m glad to be here.

Katie: I’m so glad to have you here because you are an expert on a topic that I get a lot of questions about that I don’t know how to answer, which is perimenopause and menopause and how to navigate that in the best way possible with the least discomfort possible. And I know that’s something that you are very much an expert on. So to start broad, can you explain exactly what perimenopause is and why there’s such a wide range of ages in which women experience that?

Dr. Lyla: Right. It’s kind of an interesting concept because we talk about menopause like it’s this really long period during life when in actuality perimenopause probably takes up more time. A woman can become peri-menopausal, which means around the time of menopause, as early as her, you know, early to mid-40s. And this can go on until, depending on how late she stops having her periods for up to 12 months, which is the definition of menopause. She might go till 52, 53, 54. So it can take quite a long period of time that you’ve actually fit into that category. And it really depends on the woman and a whole host of factors. Like when did she start menstruating? How many pregnancies, if any, did she experience? How long did she breastfeed?

And so it’s a very interesting time and the symptoms can be confusing. The height of the symptoms where, that we’ll get into a little bit, I’m sure, itself may only last a couple of years though. But women will start to notice some changes in their periods mostly as early as their mid-40s moving forward. So this wide range of ages leads a lot of women… I’ve even heard women in their late 30s describe themselves as feeling like they’re in the perimenopausal period. Sometimes we can tell with hormone testing where people are, but most of the time these are clinical kind of diagnoses based on symptoms that people come in with.

Katie: Got it. So when it comes to like technically defining peri-menopause, it’s not like there’s an age cutoff or even like a hormone test that defines it, but it’s more symptom based. Is that, am I understanding? So like how would one know that they might be in perimenopause and might need to like keep an eye on these things or address things?

Dr. Lyla: Yeah, exactly. That’s a really good question because menopause is a little bit easier to define. It’s the definition of menopause is not having had a cycle for a full year. If you don’t have a period for 12 months, you’re considered menopausal regardless of what your FSH is, which stands for follicle stimulating hormone. However, with peri-menopause, it is true that there’s really no lab test that can diagnose that and there’s no specific age for it. Like I mentioned earlier, you can begin to have some erratic periods, you can have breast tenderness, you can start having some weight gain and some mood changes when you start entering the perimenopausal period of time. You might even have a little bit of hot flashes because this is a period when estrogen levels are fluctuating from high to low, high to low. But progesterone is often quite low. Progesterone starts reducing much earlier than estrogen levels, maybe about 10 years earlier. Maybe in the early 40s, progesterone levels start going down. So that kind of heralds the onset of perimenopausal symptoms.

Katie: That makes sense. So I’m curious, just like to understand biochemically what is happening during perimenopause with regarding hormones and physiologically? Like I get the overall idea that the body’s preparing to stop menstruating and to go through menopause, but what hormones are changing and tend to go up or down?

Dr. Lyla: So initially, like I said, you’re gonna get a reduction in your production of progesterone. Progesterone is produced primarily by what we call the Corpus luteum within the ovary. And this happens after ovulation every month. As you become peri-menopausal, you have more cycles where you don’t actually ovulate and so you’re not secreting as much progesterone as you were earlier in life. So you’ll start seeing a steady decline of progesterone. Your estrogen levels can be great and they can continue at pretty high levels up until the time you stop having periods. And this leads to a problem called estrogen dominance and we’ll talk about that I’m sure during the course of this podcast. So you’re gonna see decline in progesterone, steady or normal estrogen. As you approach closer and closer to the menopause itself, you will also see a sharp reduction in progesterone beginning.

In addition, you’ll start seeing testosterone levels going down. And that also plays a role in some of the symptomatology, especially libido issues and energy issues. But we’re not gonna talk a whole lot about testosterone today, but do know that that is one of the three major hormones that are affecting or bringing about some of the symptoms we see.

Katie: That makes sense. And I would guess based on my understanding of hormones more just from me, the pregnancy and just monthly cycle side, it’s like they are so interdependent. Like if one goes up or down, it typically has an effect on the others in some ways. Is that true also in perimenopause?

Dr. Lyla: Yes, that is absolutely true. And, you know, other things like body weight can kind of impact the severity of symptoms during the perimenopausal and menopausal period of time because remember, fat cells will make estrogen in the body. And so, you know, one of the ways that you can keep your estrogen levels a little bit more steady and try to avoid some of the estrogen dominance that’s at least preventable is by trying to maintain a healthy body weight.

Katie: That’s good to know. And I know that applies to hormones, like for people with PCOS or other hormonal-related issues that can be really beneficial as well. To circle back to something you said at the beginning, just sheerly out of my own curiosity, you mentioned that like pregnancy and nursing and how many babies and how long can affect potentially that the age at which someone starts to enter this period. So I’m just curious to understand for my own benefit how that works and whether that makes you more or less likely to go through it at an earlier age. Because I’ve had six babies and I started having kids pretty young, so I’m just curious for my own sake.

Dr. Lyla: Yeah. So the number of pregnancies and how long you’ve nursed is important because remember we were born with a certain number of follicles in our ovaries. And whenever you’re pregnant, obviously, you’re no longer ovulating and having monthly cycles during the pregnancy. In most, you know, in 99% of cases you’re not ovulating or having a period during a pregnancy. And then for most of the time where at least if you’re nursing enough, you know, there’s that window where if you go below a certain amount of minutes per day nursing, you also won’t ovulate. That’s why women don’t get their periods immediately. And they can often go up to a year without having a period. The lucky ones, can go up to a year without having a period if they’re nursing sufficiently.

So those two things, pregnancies and nursing, help reduce the amount of actual periods that you have, the amounts of time that you actually ovulate. So then you can go longer into your lifetime, if that makes sense, having more periods. So if you never had a pregnancy, obviously you probably didn’t nurse. If you never had a pregnancy and you started your period relatively early, you’re probably gonna enter menopause a little bit earlier and vice versa. It doesn’t always follow that rule book, okay? But these are just kind of generalizations and that’s how those two things can affect the time at which somebody might enter perimenopause and then menopause. Does that make sense?

Katie: Yeah. That does, that makes perfect sense. And yeah, good to know that those factors would be really could influence that. You mentioned estrogen dominance a minute ago, and I know this is a word I know in the context of like PCOS for instance. So I’m curious, can you, for anyone who doesn’t know, define technically what estrogen dominance is and then how this affects women in that perimenopausal menopausal period and like what’s going on there?

Dr. Lyla: Well, remember I mentioned earlier that progesterone levels start going down and estrogen pretty much stays the same. And in some women, their estrogen levels may be higher than normal. So there’s a few scenarios that can lead to estrogen dominance. One of those is you’re not producing enough progesterone, but you’ve got normal amounts of estrogen. When you look at that ratio, even though your estrogen levels look normal because the progesterone is low, it throws the ratio off and so you have too much estrogen. Another scenario is when you have high estrogen and either normal or low progesterone, again, that will lead to a picture of estrogen dominance. And then the third scenario is if even if you’re almost menopausal or you’re in the midst of being, say you’ve not had a period for nine to 18 months and your estrogens already become low, you can still be estrogen dominant with a low estrogen because your progesterone is even lower. It might even be almost non-detectable because you don’t have any more Corpus luteum being produced. And so you’re still gonna be estrogen dominant.

And it’s interesting because now the more I’ve studied about this, the more patients I’ve seen in this period of their lifetime, the more I’m finding that that’s the predominant picture that we see is women with estrogen dominance. And the symptoms that you’re gonna see are, you know, those tender breasts, fiber cystic breasts, those irregular menstrual cycles., mood swings. You can see a lot of mood swings because these rapidly swinging estrogen levels. We call them basal motor symptoms. These are your hot flashes and hot flushes, weight gain, especially around the abdomen. Sometimes the hips as well can be involved. And also we can see an increase in uterine fibroids. Those typically tend to get a little bit better as estrogen levels completely go down because they’re sort of, for lack of a better word, fed by the estrogen. So these are all the symptoms and there’s several more, but these are the main symptoms that people will come in. Sometimes low libido. A lot of women complain of brain fog during this time period.

Katie: Okay. So if I’m understanding estrogen dominance is actually all about the ratio. It’s not like men can just take a test and have an estrogen number in a vacuum and a doctor say, “Okay, you have estrogen dominance.” It’s about in relation to progesterone.

Dr. Lyla: That’s correct. So you can get estrogen levels as well as progesterone levels drawn. And you know, there’s debate out there about whether saliva, blood spot or serum levels are best. I typically use blood levels. You know, I send someone to the lab and I’m gonna get an estradiol level and I’m gonna get a progesterone level and I can do the math to figure these out. And it’s easy to find if a woman is… especially if you see that her progesterone comes back really, really low. Ideally you want a ratio of about a hundred to 200. And I’ll be honest, most women that come in that are in this period of time typically do not have a ratio of 100 to 200, and they’re usually pretty symptomatic by the time they see me. So that’s probably why we’re seeing this.

Katie: Gotcha. So then if it’s about the ratio, is it as simple as raising progesterone or is it more complicated than that?

Dr. Lyla: Well, that’s a good question. And I think you’ve kind of hit the nail on the head. And there’s a lot of ways we can do that. It doesn’t automatically mean giving somebody progesterone, but in many cases that is what we do. There are some other things that you can do to reduce the estrogen dominance. You can give oral micronized progesterone. Typically we use, the studies have shown about 200 milligrams per day. In women that are still menstruating, you can give it during the last half of their cycle. So usually it’s day 12 or 14 until they begin menstruating. And women that aren’t menstruating, we can give it throughout the cycle. We can give it daily. But some other things before going to progesterone, especially in women that are concerned about taking any hormones, these are for sure bioidentical hormones. However and it’s the correct form of progesterone. It’s not the same progesterone you find in oral contraceptives. But some women still wanna try other things first.

So one of the biggest things that I like to encourage are dietary changes to start with. Things like increasing your fiber intake because fiber is going to help remove some of the excess estrogen that’s recirculating through our intestinal tract. If you have very low fiber intake, what will happen oftentimes is you’ll reabsorb some of the estrogen that would otherwise pass out through your stool. So increasing fiber will help bind some of those estrogen molecules up and carry them out. Cruciferous vegetables, one to two servings a day, I highly recommend. And one of the reasons is because they contain nutrients. One in particular called Indole-3-Carbinol, helps to detoxify estrogen. And so, especially for women that have what we call a ICOM T mutation, it’s a type of a genetic mutation that some women have that can make it more difficult for them to detoxify their estrogen.

And we won’t go into a whole lot of the forms of estrogen that are toxic versus non-toxic, but cruciferous vegetables and certain supplements like DIM, Diindolylmethane will help detoxify estrogen and also allow it to pass out through the stool. Also, exercise and stress reduction. I can’t talk more strongly about the importance of stress reduction. Things like yoga and meditation and breath work. All of these can help reduce or eliminate excessive estrogen and what we call Pregnenolone Steal, which is kind of a siphoning off of the components that you need to make progesterone where it is due to stress, kind of shuttled over to make cortisol as opposed to making progesterone and then therefore resulting in a reduction in your circulating progesterone levels.

Acupuncture is also helpful and can help with a lot of the basal motor symptoms that women suffer from. Which by the way I haven’t mentioned tends to be the biggest complaint that women come in with but not necessarily the most dangerous aspect of menopause. And, you know, those would be cardiovascular, risk of bone loss. And I’ll just leave it there. Bone loss and cardiovascular risk factors. Also, changes and alterations in the cholesterol profile. We’ll see that happen with reductions in estrogen levels.

Katie: I love that you addressed some of the food based ways because that’s my background in nutrition and it’s like as if any of us needed even more reasons to eat green vegetables. But they’re so beneficial in so many ways. And I’ve also read that green vegetables are high in magnesium, which I personally found and I think a lot of women find helps lessen symptoms of like even like PMS or cramps for me. And so I would guess there’s maybe like a beneficial effect there as well. And I also love that you brought up the cardio and boneless side because you’re right, I think hot flashes are what we stereotypically associate with menopause. But from what I’ve read, at menopause, women’s risk of cardiovascular disease rises almost to the rate of men. And I’d love to explore a little bit of why that’s the case and if maybe like is iron an aspect there because women are losing iron each month by bleeding. Are there other factors involved and how can we counteract that? Because obviously that’s a huge problem in our society and it’s on the rise. So what can women do knowing that going into this to help protect themselves?

Dr. Lyla: Right. Well, we know that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the United States and it’s rapidly becoming the number one killer throughout the world. As we explore our food habits and fast food chains to other parts of the world, we’re seeing just everybody catching up with us. That being said, estrogen is protective for women. And so premenopausal women have a much lower risk of developing heart disease than men do. And so what ends up happening is when we no longer have that protective factor circulating in our blood to the levels that we had as premenopausal women, then we began to look like men to some degree as it relates to our cholesterol profile and our propensity to develop heart disease.

The interesting thing about that is that estrogen, what we found in the Women’s Health Initiative, which was a study back in the very early 2000s, I believe, 2001 was when it was published, caused the panic in the medical community because, you know, at that point in time, almost every menopausal woman had been put on some form of hormone replacement. They were synthetic hormone. Well, let me put it this way. The estrogen component was Premarin which is derived from mare’s urine, horses urine, pregnant horses urine and a synthetic progestin. What that study showed was that women’s risk for what we call VTE or Venous Thrombosis Events went up drastically as did their cardiovascular events. And so it did not protect them against the things that we thought they should be protected against by giving them those components. However, and this is a big caveat to that study and to the interpretation of that data, there were a lot of women in this cohort that were more than 10 years out of menopause. So they were over age 60.

They were naive to estrogen for that entire time. Many of them, or most of them, hadn’t been on any estrogen during those interceding 10 years or so. And also the third piece of it was these were not the same type of products that we are gravitating to now in terms of, you know, using Estradiol as opposed to conjugated estrogens from horses urine. And the progestins I mentioned were different than the oral micronized progesterone that we use now, which is more bio-identical. And so the interpretation of that study really scared a lot of people off from using either if you can call it hormone replacement therapy or menopausal hormone treatment because they were interpreting the results appropriately, but the patient that were in the clinical trials were not the patients that we’re trying to target now that are the most symptomatic and that are within 10 years of starting or having been in menopause.

So I can clarify that a little bit more if you have specific questions, but just know that those…it can get very muddy, right? Because we’re saying, “Okay, you’re gonna treat cardiovascular risk by replacing someone’s estrogen, but wait a minute estrogen and progesterone or progestins caused more heart attacks and clotting events. Where’s the disconnect?” That’s the disconnect. We’re using different forms now of these products and we’re trying to start women earlier.

Katie: Got it. That makes sense. Okay. So I’d love to go deeper on hormone replacement therapy because I know that there are several different kinds. You’ve mentioned a couple of them. And that’s an option that’s often presented to women at that age. And I know that there’s also like the functional medicine approach differs a little bit than maybe the straight conventional medicine approach. So I’m curious for when a patient comes to you who’s in this phase, who’s maybe having some symptoms what are the options available to her and how do you evaluate which one’s best?

Dr. Lyla: At the outset I’d like to say that, you know, women, we’re all individual. And so the nice thing with this is that you can really sit down and talk to a woman and find out what’s bothering you, what are your symptoms. And that’s really what I try to gear my treatment at is what’s interfering with your quality of life. And then in most cases, like we talked about earlier, it’s a lot of the time it’s basal motor symptoms, the hot flashes, the night sweats, etc. So for somebody like that, we do know that as long as the woman is within the first 10 years of her menopause and she’s under the age of 60, the risk benefit ratio is gonna be in her favor to do some form of estrogen replacement. Also, remember that if you have an intact uterus, in other words, you’ve not had a hysterectomy for whatever reason, then you must take progesterone if you’re taking estrogen.

So what we typically will do is offer what we call transdermal estrogen. And that is a patch. And, you know, historically the, you know, there’s been…we’ve had patches for a long time, but the technology that’s around now that allows us to provide very, you know, reasonable amounts of estrogen absorbed through the skin so that it doesn’t have to pass through the liver, makes it a much safer form and also a very effective form. That’s gonna be the most effective for those hot flashes. And then progesterone would be delivered in a tablet or a capsule, typically. Other options are vaginal estrogen in a cream form. That’s gonna be great for some of the vaginal dryness and thinning of the vaginal tissue, but it’s not gonna help so much typically with the hot flashes. You need something a little bit more systemic to help with hot flashes.

For women that have any contra-indication to estrogen therapy, will start again with some of those things I mentioned. With diet, you know, increase in fiber, increasing cruciferous vegetables, acupuncture, starting somebody on DIM also was very helpful, can sometimes help with those symptoms. If a woman is not having significant hot flashes yet, but she’s having maybe the really heavy bleeding, irregular bleeding that some women get, maybe earlier in the perimenopausal period, sometimes we can do things like chasteberry which is a capsule that you take every day. It’s another name for it is Vitex, V- I-T-E-X. Sometimes that will help regulate periods in women, help make them more reliable. You know, they might come a little bit more frequently and they might be a little bit less heavy. That buys you a little bit of time before you need to start some other type of hormone.

Again, weight loss is important because estrogen production that takes place in the fat cells can contribute to these swings. And other things like evening Primrose oil has been used. Agnus castus, this is another herb that some people use. So there’s a lot in our armamentarium and really what most of us are gonna do is look at the particular woman sitting in front of us and we’re gonna say, “Okay, what are your symptoms? What bothers you the most?” And try to gear our treatment at that. That might mean that we’re gonna do several different things over a period of five to 10 years. So the therapy may change from when she’s in her mid-40s or late 40s to when she’s in her early to mid-50s. A few other things that might be helpful is we do some caffeine intake also abstaining or reducing the amount of alcohol that you drink because alcohol we know can increase Estradiol levels and also decrease progesterone levels. And so that’s gonna exacerbate any estrogen dominance that we’re already seeing at baseline.

And lastly, I would say avoiding plastics and other Xenoestrogens like that. Everybody’s probably heard about bisphosphonate A that’s BPA. So avoiding the use of plastics whenever you can, not just, you know, using them in the microwave but trying not to store food in plastics and trying to drink your water out of stainless steel containers and things like that. Looking at your cosmetics and any Xenoestrogens that might be present in those, avoiding foods with pesticides, so eating organic and non-GMO foods, all of these things can help treat those symptoms before even moving on to giving somebody progesterone and or estrogen.

Katie: Yeah, I love that and I think it’s so important what you said about taking that whole body approach and looking at the woman’s sitting in front of you. And I am so glad for functional medicine and for this like really this rise and understanding about functional medicine. Because I think when you’re talking about any life change or health condition, it’s so much more effective to work with a doctor who’s taking everything into account and just like in this how hormones, you know they all affect each other and if one goes up or down it can influence the others. There’s also, at least from my own experience, things like thyroid function and how that can influence perimenopause or any hormone aspect or if there’s gut stuff going on. You know, if people have other conditions instead of just trying to look at estrogen in a vacuum and is it too high or too low, it’s taking the whole body approach and testing all of those things and then working with the patient to figure out how can you as the person where you are right now, change your lifestyle, your diet and is there a need for things like hormone replacement so that it’s a whole body approach.

And that just, I found that was the key for me with thyroid disease and with so much else. An you work with SteadyMD, which is a company I love and my doctor is also a SteadyMD. So I just wanted to mention that for anyone looking for a functional medicine approach who may or may not have a local doctor this is a great way that people can connect with doctors like you, including you and work through all of these things, not just be looked at as a symptom in a vacuum. I also love that you brought up plastic because that is one of those topics I love to write about and educate about and I think is so important. I write about it especially from the kids’ perspective and when they’re young and they’re still, they haven’t even gone through puberty yet, how important it is to minimize plastic, but you’re so right. I think we also have to think of that for ourselves and especially when we’re going through any hormonal period. It’s so, so important. And I think people often discount just how important that could be.

I know for myself when it comes to hormone changes, and again, I haven’t been through perimenopause, but I have worked on balancing my own hormones, I’ve also found that things like sleep is drastic. If I don’t get enough sleep, my hormones will be off. And also for me, sunlight. And I’m curious if this is something that you found as well, but if I get up and go outside in the morning and drink tea or water or just be outside early in the morning, I find that it not only gives me more energy and helps my sleep at night, but that over time my hormones including cortisol, but also estrogen and progesterone have all seemed to get into better ranges. And I’ve done other things as well. But I’m curious if that’s something that you look at with your patients as well.

Dr. Lyla: Oh, absolutely. And thank you for bringing up just the intertwined nature of our organ systems and our hormones because you’re right that all of these hormones are important to understand your thyroid. You know, you can’t do this in a vacuum. You can’t treat someone in menopause and ignore what’s going on with their thyroid. It doesn’t always mean that something’s wrong with their thyroid, but we really need to rule that out as a contributing factor. As it relates to the last thing that you said surrounding the importance of sunlight and sleep, absolutely. So you know that not getting enough sleep causes in and of itself just that alone can cause stressors on the body, which are gonna increase cortisol. And remember I mentioned earlier in the podcast that when the need for cortisol production goes up because of chronic stress, including sleep deprivation, that you’re gonna be pulling away from the hormone cascade that makes progesterone. And so that’s gonna cause a problem right there.

So minimum, ideally of six, ideally more like seven to nine hours of sleep. And what we know is that DNA changes occur after just one night of getting less than six hours of sleep. And these DNA changes lead to an upregulation of your inflammatory what we call cytokines or inflammatory chemicals in your body and downregulation of the anti-inflammatory cytokines. And so what ends up happening is you have an inflammatory picture going on when these genes change. So you’ve gotta get enough sleep first and foremost. And then also the stress piece. We talked about that a little while ago. You really have to keep stress under control. And that means different things to different people. Sometimes it’s meditating. And I recommend all my patients to meditate. We could do a whole podcast on meditation. Sometimes it’s breath work. Sometimes it’s, you know, a walking type meditation, something that’s gonna calm your nervous system. So anything that brings you calm and comfort, you should do that every day for at least 20 minutes.

Sunlight, you brought up. I’m sitting here in front of my light right now because even though it’s still sunny and the weather is still not too bad in Ohio right now, I wanna get ahead of the game in terms of it’s gonna get dark here really soon. It’s gonna start getting dark early. It’s gonna be dark when I wake up. And so trying to get exposure to the sunlight if you can, that would be ideal because if you’re out and you’re walking, you’re getting exercise and you’re getting sunlight. However, for people that live in areas where it’s not as amenable to that type of activity every day, you can get yourself a light that provides at least 10,000 Lux, that’s L-U-X. And use that 20 to 30 minutes sometime shortly upon awakening. If you can get it in within the first four hours upon awakening, that would be great. And that will also help not only your mood, I don’t know that there’s any studies that will prove that lights like this will or sunlight, it in fact helps with hormone levels, but I think you’re onto something when you say that this has helped you because if it helps your mood and it helps your stress levels, then it’s by definition going to help balance your hormones.

Katie: That makes sense. And like you said, if it helps your sleep as well, like sleep is so, so key for, I find that more and more for every aspect of health. And also the stress component you mentioned. That was the one I ignored for a lot of years because I just thought I could power through and as long as I ate really clean and exercise and did all of that, I could just kind of power through the stress and the emotional side of things. And it wasn’t until I really dove in and addressed those things that I really started seeing those internal shifts and then also the physiological shifts that come with them. A few kind of a followup questions related to things we’ve talked about. So, so many of the things you’ve mentioned related to perimenopause sound like things I also hear from women with PCOS and I’m curious if there is any type of connection there and if people who have PCOS are more or less likely to experience symptoms more in perimenopause or to go through menopause earlier.

Dr. Lyla: So women with PCOS have a little bit of a different milled of symptoms. A lot of them, have because of the fact that they have so many it’s called polycystic ovarian syndrome because they have an increase in the number of cysts. They’re producing more testosterone. And so that testosterone is what kind of monkeys up, monkeys with their hormone kind of picture. I don’t know, honestly whether or not women with PCOS tend to have more symptomatic or less symptomatic perimenopausal periods. My gut instinct would tell me that they probably do only because most people with PCOS have spent decades with hormonal aberrations. And so why should it be any different during the perimenopausal and menopausal period of time? They also tend to have problems with blood sugars. And when you have blood sugar issues, that tends to lead to you know, weight discrepancies or having too much weight on board, which as we already talked about, can lead to increased production of estrogen and that estrogen dominance becoming again a problem.

So yes, the symptoms can sound very similar. And, you know, let’s face it, a lot of the symptoms that we’re talking about are sometimes sort of vague symptoms that a lot of us complain about. Fatigue and moodiness and, you know, acne and these kinds of things. So, you know, we’re gonna see them across the board in women with different reproductive type conditions. We can treat them very similarly. People that come in with PCOS though I’m gonna have probably a different mindset as it relates to, “Okay, which hormones do we wanna treat here?” And it’s also gonna depend a lot on their age.

Katie: Gotcha. And then as another followup to that I’m curious about different methods of birth control and how they might impact people and their experience in peri-menopause and just hormonally overall. Because I know there’s a lot of options out there and I get a lot of questions from women about this and I have no idea, and I’m not a doctor, so I don’t answer them. But I’m curious how, if they do come into play, how they come into play?

Dr. Lyla: Well, so the interesting thing is what we often see is that women that enter this period because they’re having these irregular periods, oftentimes very heavy periods because of the high levels of estrogen and the anovulatory cycles that they might experience because of the low progesterone or as a result of low progesterone. We’ll see them get recommended to have, say a Mirena, which is a progesterone eluding IUD placed. Because that will help provides for a local installation of progesterone in the area of the uterus. It can help reduce bleeding and oftentimes just stops periods altogether which can by women a few years before they actually enter menopause. So it can really reduce the amount of bleeding and blood loss that women experience.

Some women are treated with low dose oral contraceptives. Because remember when you’re perimenopausal, you’re still capable of becoming pregnant because you do ovulate sometimes and if you ovulate and you have intercourse, you can become pregnant. So some doctors will use various types of oral contraceptive, usually combination contraception. However, women that are over 40 and or women that smoke may be more at risk for blood clots if they’re on oral contraceptives. So that’s less and less common. We see that less and less commonly nowadays. And that’s certainly nothing that somebody in functional or integrative medicine probably would recommend.

I think it’s definitely worth, especially for the women out there that don’t tend to go to the doctor a lot. If you’re on an oral contraceptive, you may not really see a lot of these changes because you’re gonna be getting a pretty constant dose of estrogen and progesterone throughout, you know, the days that you’re taking your tablets. So you may not get as much of the hot flashes and your periods are gonna be regulated. However, it might be worth for sure a visit at age 48, 49 to start discussing how to manage these symptoms or how long you should continue to be on the oral contraceptive therapy. And I say that because of what I mentioned a minute ago about the risk for blood clots, especially if you have a family history of blood clots. It may be advisable to come off of that and to choose another course of therapy.

You definitely wanna wait until you’ve been off of your oral contraceptives for a period of time, at least four to six weeks before checking hormone levels because clearly if you’re checking them while you’re on those types of hormones, it’s gonna throw off the results. So having an appointment 48, 49, no later than 50 to discuss, “Okay, I’m entering this age range where most likely I’m gonna be entering menopause.” And the average age in the US is 51 for women becoming menopausal. And so while there is a range of typically four to five years on either side of that, I think going to the doctor no later than age 48 would be advisable to see if there are some other ways to manage this period of life in the safest way possible.

Katie: That’s, yeah, great advice.

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Katie: For me personally, I’ve never been on any form of hormonal contraceptives at all, but I track my cycle using several apps actually in NFP and body temperature. I hope I still have quite a bit of time before peri-menopause. But I’m curious for those of us who do track our cycles, you mentioned that like cycles can space out. Are there other changes that we would begin to notice if we were actually like watching for fertile signs? Would like a certain phase of the cycle tend to lengthen? Would it be like the luteal phase or what would we see there?

Dr. Lyla: Yeah, so typically your cycles are gonna get the time between your cycles, say your typical period might be every 28, every 29 days. They tend to get a little bit shorter. And that variation tends to be the luteal phase where that’s actually shortening. And that’s what accounts for the change in the overall cycle length. More often than not, you’re gonna see women that have heavier bleeding maybe more clots. And it can be a little off putting. Women often will come in iron deficient at this point in time because they’re having such heavy periods.

You know, it’s interesting to know that the average woman should typically only lose about 35 MLs of blood per cycle, and that would equate to about 70 spoons of blood. Women that are in the perimenopausal period can lose that in a day or in two days of their cycle or even shorter than that. So you’ll find that maybe you’re going through more tampons or you’re going through more pads, or if you use a menstrual cup, it’s filling up within a few hours as opposed to the 12 hours they say that it’s supposed to last you. Those are indications that you’re probably beginning to have lower progesterone levels and entering perimenopausal time. Another symptom would be of course the hot flashes and sometimes they’ll only happen at night. You might just wake up a little warmer than you typically would. So those are probably the main kind of alerting symptoms that you’re gonna see. So, you know, watching those cycle lengths on your apps can be the first tip off before you’ve even gotten any breast tenderness or anything like that.

Katie: Okay. Awesome. That’s great to know. And as we start to get towards the end, I’m curious, we’ve talked about a lot of these symptoms and what to look for. Is and I know that the understanding is that women think they’re gonna have these symptoms, especially in menopause, are the symptoms avoidable to some degree or completely if women are willing to kind of take this broader functional medicine approach that you talked about and address diet and lifestyle as well as hormones? Have you seen women go through perimenopause and menopause much more easily by doing that?

Dr. Lyla: You know, it’s interesting because you’ve talked to women I’m sure that have said, “You know, I hardly had any hot flashes. I had the easiest menopause known to mankind.” And they’re not always women that are seeing functional medicine doctors. You know, sometimes it just really depends on the person, their family history, their, you know, obviously diet and things like that. I would say this, I would say that in the vast majority of women that are really symptomatic, seeing the right, you know, practitioner can really, really make a difference. Making these dietary changes, losing weight, sometimes it’s putting on weight. If you’re underweight, sometimes putting on weight will help a little bit. Exercise. Can’t stress enough the stress reduction. All of these things can definitely ameliorate the symptoms of menopause.

And when all else fails, you know, we know that estrogen combined with progesterone will help symptoms. And more and more information actually has come out that even progesterone alone, micronized progesterone, like I said, 200 milligrams daily in a postmenopausal woman sometimes is enough. Sometimes they don’t even need to resort to using an estrodiol. It just is gonna be so individual. And so I really urge people to have that conversation with somebody that they trust. Read, read, read. There are all kinds of… Well there’s lots of things out there that you probably don’t wanna read, but there are really good Christiane Northrup’s book ”The Wisdom of Menopause.” It’s an older book, but there’s really a lot of good information in that book. And I think just really getting to know A, your body and B, paying really close attention to when an intervention is tried taking good notes and really being able to document how did that intervention work for you because it’s not always gonna work the same for every individual. And talk to your physician about the results of any interventions that are tried because if it’s not working, working together, the two of you can figure out something that will work. It may take some trial and error and it may take a little bit of time to get it right, but that’s so important. And don’t hesitate if something’s not working to bring it up and just keep plugging away at it because you can get relief.

Katie: Absolutely. And I mentioned SteadyMD kind of in the middle of the episode and there’s gonna be links to both SteadyMD and to you directly on steadyMD in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. So if any of you guys are listening and you are in this phase of life you can definitely find and work with Dr. Lyla or any of the doctors at SteadyMD. But anything you wanna say about SteadyMD or how people can find and work with you.

Dr. Lyla: Well, the great thing about SteadyMD really is, you know, I’ve found in my past 19 years of practice that one of the biggest complaints of people is that they can’t get in when they need to get in. They don’t have the access that they want or that they need. People are busy nowadays and they really need, if they have an issue, they need to be able to get into their doctor. And sometimes two, three, four weeks isn’t fast enough. So with SteadyMD, you have access to somebody that is aligned with your thought process and your philosophy for health and you have access to them and they’re gonna get back to you. The app is great. The video chat is to me as good as being there in person. And so I feel like I can really help improve access. I can see people from all around the country.

Another piece of it is that, you know, if there’s issues with these types of symptoms, I can order labs and you can take them to your local lab. You don’t have to fly to Cleveland, Ohio to see me. And so I really like the convenience of it. The piece about, you know, they typically, when you sign up for SteadyMD, you take this quiz and this quiz will kind of match you with the doctor that has the most similar outlook or philosophy to yours. And so you’re gonna end up with somebody that you didn’t just pick out of a book because they were on your insurance. You’re finding somebody that’s very aligned with the way you look at the world. And I think there’s nothing better than sitting and talking with somebody that thinks the same way you do. You don’t spend a lot of your visit trying to convince the doctor that this is how things should be or this is what you’re experiencing. So that I think it also makes it a very efficient service.

Katie: I agree. And I think a link to find the quiz is steadymd.com/wellnessmama. So if you guys are listening, it’s really quick, easy quiz and like Dr. Lyla said, it connects you with the doctor who’s gonna agree with you. You’re not gonna have to fight your doctor about nutrition or the fact that you want to take a natural approach. They’re amazing. I love my SteadyMD doctor and I think this was a super, super helpful podcast episode. Like I said, this is an area I don’t have experience with and I love that you jumped in and answered all these questions and provided so much value. So Dr. Lyla, thank you so much for being here today.

Dr. Lyla: Thank you, Katie. I look forward to talking with you again and I hope this has been helpful to your listeners.

Katie: It absolutely has. And thanks as always to all of you for listening and sharing your valuable resource, your time with both of us. We’re so grateful that you did and that you are here today. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the ”Wellness Mama” podcast.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/lyla-blake-gumbs/

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